Publishing M&A in 2024 (So Far)

At the end of 2023, industry observers told PW they expected 2024 to be an active year for mergers and acquisitions. So far, those predictions have been accurate, with seven notable deals announced in the first half of the year, and two major deals announced last week: RBmedia’s acquisition of Dreamscape Media, and Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Boom! Studios.

Insiders suggested that 2024 wouldn’t see billion-dollar acquisitions—unlike in 2023, when private equity firm KKR paid $1.65 billion for Simon & Schuster and sold audiobook publisher RBmedia to H.I.G. Capital for $1 billion—but rather a flurry of smaller deals among indies, with tough economics forcing smaller presses to either cash out or scale up. And as predicted, industry mergers thus far in 2024 have had a decidedly indie—and international—flavor. Below, PW rounds up the industry’s M&A activity for the first half of 2024.

S&S, VBK

Perhaps the safest prediction for 2024 was that S&S would buy something—after all, the publisher’s new owners at KKR explicitly said its plan for S&S included international expansion. The company wasted little time making good on those promises, announcing in May an agreement to acquire Veen Bosch & Keuning, the largest book publisher in the Netherlands. The acquisition, which still needs to be approved by the U.S. and the Netherlands, includes all VBK’s imprints as well as its sister companies, audiobook producer Thinium and Bookchoice, a subscription-based platform for e-books and audiobooks.

Though no purchase price was disclosed, VBK has 280 employees and publishes about 1,500 titles annually, likely making it the biggest publishing deal of the year so far.

More importantly, the deal, S&S’s first for a non–English-language publisher, provides the company its desired foothold in the European market.

Bloomsbury, R&L Professional

In one of the bigger deals so far this year, U.K.-based Bloomsbury Publishing acquired Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group’s professional and academic division. Bloomsbury paid $83 million for the company, which had sales of $36 million and profits of $6 million in 2023.

Many industry observers considered the purchase price, which was 2.2 times annual RLPG revenue, to be on the high side. (KKR paid about 1.5 times sales for S&S, by comparison.) But the deal reflected a number of factors, including the scarcity of publishing companies of RLPG’s size on the market, higher margins in academic publishing compared to trade, and the determination of Bloomsbury chief Nigel Newton to continue the company’s international expansion. The acquisition is expected to push Bloomsbury’s annual sales in the U.S. close to $300 million and move its total revenue close to $500 million.

Rizzoli, Chelsea Green

In April, Rizzoli International Publications, the New York–based subsidiary of Italy’s Mondadori Group, agreed to acquire Chelsea Green Publishing for about $5 million. Chelsea Green, the Vermont-based independent book publisher of titles on politics and sustainability, had 2022 sales of $8.1 million. It will become an imprint of Rizzoli International, with president and publisher (and cofounder in 1984) Margo Baldwin joining the Rizzoli International executive team and assuming the role of publisher emeritus.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the deal: Chelsea Green has been fully employee owned since 2019 and the net proceeds from the sale will be shared by employees enrolled in the publisher’s employee stock ownership plan. In a statement, Baldwin said she was thrilled to have secured the future for Chelsea Green and to join Rizzoli and Mondadori for “the next phase” of the press’s development.

Abrams, Taunton Books

In May, less than six months after acquiring Connecticut-based Taunton Press, Active Interest Media, a publisher of enthusiast magazines based in Des Moines, Iowa, sold off the Taunton Books division to Abrams. The purchase brings Abrams about 900 titles that complement its existing publishing programs in the craft, food, and gardening spaces, and expands the company’s reach into new areas, such as home building and woodworking. Abrams believes the acquisition will also yield new marketing opportunities: Taunton frequently sold and marketed its books alongside its magazines and other properties, collecting consumer data from a wide variety of creative communities.

Pushkin, Steerforth

At the end of May, London-based indie Pushkin Press acquired New Hampshire’s Steerforth Press and its sister company, Hanover Publisher Services. As of this month, the two companies have been merged into Steerforth Press and Services, with Steerforth cofounder Chip Fleischer staying on as a senior editor, with plans to acquire six to eight new nonfiction titles per year.

Pushkin publisher Adam Freudenheim called the acquisition a “natural step” for the companies to grow in the U.S. and U.K. markets, noting that they have maintained a working relationship since 2014, when Hanover began distributing Pushkin in the U.S. Steerforth, which has about 75 active titles, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Pushkin was founded in 1999, and in 2022 won Independent Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Blue Star, Sasquatch

In yet another deal that involved a growing independent publisher buying a similar-sized competitor, in June Oregon-based Blue Star Press acquired fellow Pacific Northwest publisher, Sasquatch Books, based in Seattle.

Launched in 2015 amid the adult coloring book craze, Blue Star Press has shown impressive growth, making PW’s fast-growing independent publisher list in 2021, with founder Peter Licalzi noting that of its 192 titles, only five have gone out of print, and that the average lifetime sales per title is about 25,000 copies. The purchase of Sasquatch adds more than 1,000 titles to Blue Star’s backlist and increases the size of its workforce by a third.

Licalzi, who said he had been “looking to buy something for some time,” said his plan for Sasquatch is simple: stay out of the way. “They publish great books. We hope to help them sell more.”

Arcadia, Dry Climate, Belt

Something that wasn’t on anyone’s radar for 2024 was multiple acquisitions by one indie, but that’s long been the strategy for Arcadia Publishing. In May, Arcadia, which over the past several years has undertaken a series of acquisitions to build a backlist of more than 20,000 regionally focused nonfiction titles, picked up independent children’s publisher Dry Climate Studios, best known for its alphabet books spotlighting notable locales across the country. Dry Climate titles will become part of the Arcadia Children’s Books imprint.

In February, Arcadia acquired Cleveland-based Belt Publishing from founder Anne Trubek. In explaining her decision to sell, Trubek, who will remain publisher of the 11-year-old press, cited the financial stress of running a small press, a familiar refrain among indies in 2024. “We can’t take advantage of any of the many efficiencies of scale offered to larger presses,” Trubek said. “Those structural obstacles were making the finances hard.”