Who Are The Top Book Publishers?

If you think that your manuscript represents the crème dela crème of the modern literary world, knowing who the top book publishers are will help you place your work in the top of bookshelves worldwide. By “top”, of course, what is meant are the ones who can turn in the numbers and sell the most. Attaching yourself with these seasoned and success oriented publishers vastly increases your selling potential because of their vast network. Although you can always try to strike it out on your own and self publish, very few who self publish can actually reach the same level of success as those who chose to attach themselves to prominent publishers.

By “top book publishers”, what is meant are the ones who are successful in ensuring that a writer becomes a best seller. Here is a simple list:

1. Random House. The undisputed market leader is Random House with 17.5% of the market share for 2009. They’re known for a wide assortment of best sellers and even children’s books. Remember those little golden books for children? They published them. Loved those Danielle Steel novels? Random house published them.
2. Pearson. Unsurprisingly, an education focused publisher takes the second spot. When you say Pearson, it’s almost always education related. In the Internet age, they’ve adapted to making multimedia materials that would place them in a significant advantage as schools are now midway to adapting electronic academic materials. In a way, you may say that Pearson is one of the top book publishers not only in the education field, but in the electronic field.
3. Hatchette. Number three on the list is the product of multiple mergers and acquisitions. The Hatchette Book Group USA, is a part of the much larger Hatchette Livre which is France based. Hatchette Livre is the second largest publisher in the world and the largest in France. One notable aspect of Hatchette is that it adopts a targeted model of publishing where it divides itself according to genre. So for each literary genre is a different brand of publication altogether. For instance, its romantically inclined books are under the “Forever” brand. It’s Christian and faith inspired division is under Faithwords. There are many more and its offices dot the world all over. The US group is headquartered in Manhattan, New York.
4. Harper Collins. Owned by media titan News Corporation, what makes Harper and Collins one of the foremost book publishers today is broad reach and eclectic selections of highly lauded and high profile authors. Among these would be Ronald Reagan’s The Notes, the novel I Am Number Four – which was adapted into a movie, and self improvement Guru Deepak Chopra.
5. Simon and Schuster. Last but certainly not the least is Simon and Schuster. On a yearly basis, it turns out 2000 books which is quite impressive and large. Headquartered in New York City, among the more notable authors in its roster is Stephen King.  

Although not as exhaustive as one would like it to be, this list of the top book publishers could get you on your way to writing prominence as hundreds of others have. Take note of them and try to contact their literary agents or authors to have them go over your work and see how far it will take you.