WASHINGTON — Bestselling writer Stephen King gingerly stepped as much as the witness stand Tuesday in a federal antitrust trial. Tracing his personal historical past, he laid out a portrait of a publishing trade that has grow to be more and more concentrated over time.
“My name is Stephen King. I’m a freelance writer,” King mentioned as he started his testimony as a witness for the Justice Department.
The authorities is attempting to attempting to persuade a federal decide {that a} proposed merger of Penguin Random House and rival Simon & Schuster, two of the world’s greatest publishers, would thwart competitors and injury the careers of a few of the hottest authors.
King has been revealed for years by Simon & Schuster. Some of his former publishers have been acquired by bigger ones. The $2.2 billion merger of Penguin Random House, the largest U.S. writer, and fourth-largest Simon & Schuster would cut back the “Big Five” U.S. publishers to 4.
As authorities lawyer Mel Schwarz walked King via his historical past beginning as a brand new, unknown writer within the Nineteen Seventies and his relationships with brokers and publishers, King homed in on a critique of the trade as it’s now.
Wearing all grey — swimsuit, footwear and tie — King crisply answered Schwarz’s questions, with some moments of humor and transient flashes of mild outrage.
“I came because I think that consolidation is bad for competition,” the grasp of the horror style testified. The manner the trade has developed, King mentioned, “It becomes tougher and tougher for writers to find money to live on.”
“The Big Five are pretty entrenched,” he mentioned.
King expressed skepticism towards the 2 publishers’ dedication to proceed to bid for books individually and competitively after a merger.
“You might as well say you’re going to have a husband and wife bidding against each other for the same house,” he quipped. “It would be sort of very gentlemanly and sort of after you, and after you,” he mentioned, gesturing with a well mannered sweep of the arm.
Attorney Daniel Petrocelli, representing the publishers, advised King he had no questions and demurred on a cross-examination.
Petrocelli argued for the protection that the trade was really numerous, worthwhile and open to newcomers. Publishing means not simply the Big Five, he contended, but in addition such medium-size firms as W.W. Norton & Co. and Grove Atlantic.
“Every book starts out as an anticipated bestseller in the gleam of an author’s or an editor’s eye,” he mentioned.
King has mentioned, nonetheless, that it’s the small and medium publishers most in danger by the deal.
“The more the publishers consolidate, the harder it is for indie publishers to survive,” King tweeted final yr.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”