Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, was chairman of the company from 1964 until his death in December 1986. Since 1999, Macmillan has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others.
George Edward Brett opened the first Macmillan office in the United States in 1869 and Macmillan sold its U.S. operations to the Brett family, George Platt Brett, Sr. and George Platt Brett, Jr. in 1896, resulting in the creation of an American company, Macmillan Publishing, also called The Macmillan Company (later known as Macmillan Inc.). Even with the split of the American company from its parent company in England, George Brett, Jr. and Harold Macmillan remained close personal friends. Macmillan Publishers held stake in the American company before divested it in 1951 and later re-entered the American market in 1952 under the name St. Martin's Press.[8]
After retiring from politics in 1964, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, became chairman of the company, serving until 1974 when he handed on the chairmanship to his son Maurice Macmillan[10](who in turn left the government, having been Paymaster General in the defeated government of Edward Heath) and took on the more honorific position of President[11] until his death in December 1986.[12] He had been with the family firm as a junior partner from 1920 to 1940 (when he became a junior minister), and from 1945 to 1951 while he was in the opposition in Parliament.
Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America in 1998, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included various Macmillan Inc. properties and trademarks).[13] Holtzbrinck purchased it from them in 2001.[14] McGraw-Hill continues to market its pre-kindergarten through elementary school titles under its Macmillan/McGraw-Hill brand. The US operations of Holtzbrinck Publishing changed its name to Macmillan in October 2007.[13][15] Its audio publishing imprint changed its name from Audio Renaissance to Macmillan Audio, while its distribution arm was renamed from Von Holtzbrinck Publishers Services to Macmillan Publishers Services.[13] Pan Macmillan purchased Kingfisher, a British children's publisher, from Houghton Mifflin in October 2007. Roaring Brook Press publisher Simon Boughton would oversee Kingfisher's US business.[16]
By some estimates, as of 2009, e-books account for three to five per cent of total book sales, and are the fastest growing segment of the market.[17] According to The New York Times, Macmillan and other major publishers "fear that massive discounting [of e-books] by retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony could ultimately devalue what consumers are willing to pay for books." In response, the publisher introduced a new boilerplate contract for its authors that established a royalty of 20 per cent of net proceeds on e-book sales, a rate five per cent lower than most other major publishers.[17] Following the announcement of the Apple iPad on 27 January 2010—a product that comes with access to the iBookstore—Macmillan gave Amazon.com two options: continue to sell e-books based on a price of the retailer's choice (the "wholesale model"), with the e-book edition released several months after the hardcover edition is released, or switch to the agency model introduced to the industry by Apple, in which both are released simultaneously and the price is set by the publisher. In the latter case, Amazon.com would receive a 30 per cent commission.[18] Amazon responded by pulling all Macmillan books, both electronic and physical, from their website (although affiliates selling the books were still listed). On 31 January 2010, Amazon chose the agency model preferred by Macmillan.[19] In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, Macmillan, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books, and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market, in violation of antitrust law.[20] In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Macmillan and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing.[21]
In 2010, Macmillan Education submitted to an investigation on grounds of fraudulent practices.[22] The Macmillan division admitted to bribery in an attempt to secure a contract for an education project in southern Sudan.[22] As a direct result of the investigation, sanctions were applied by the World Bank Group, namely a six-year debarment (reduced from eight years due to an early acknowledgment of misconduct by the company) declaring the company ineligible to be awarded Bank-financed contracts.[23]
In December 2011, Bedford, Freeman, and Worth Publishing Group, Macmillan's higher education group, changed its name to Macmillan Higher Education while retaining the Bedford, Freeman, and Worth name for its k–12 educational unit.[15] Also, that month, Brian Napack resigned as Macmillan president while staying on for transitional purposes.[24]
In 2012, parent company Holtzbrinck reorganized; Macmillan's consumer publishing operations were now led by John Turner Sargent from New York City.[25]
In May 2015, London-based Macmillan Science and Education merged with Berlin-based Springer Science+Business Media to form Springer Nature, jointly controlled by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners.[26][27] The following month, it dissolved its British-based imprint Boxtree Limited, which Macmillan had operated since 1986.[28]
In January 2019, Toronto, Canada-based online writing community Wattpad announced an agreement with Macmillan [sic, Springer Nature America] for handling sales and distribution in the U.S. for its new publishing division Wattpad Books, alongside rival Penguin Random House that will handle the U.K. and India market, and Raincoast Books for the Canadian market.[29][30][31]
In November 2019, Macmillan announced that libraries would be able to buy only one copy of e-books for the first eight weeks after publication, in an effort to boost sales by creating long waits for borrowers at large library systems. This prompted complaints and some libraries boycotted the company; the policy was reversed in March 2020.[32]
In September 2020, Macmillan announced that CEO John Sargent will be leaving at the end of the year due to "a disagreement regarding the direction of Macmillan." According to Holtzbrinck spokesperson Erin Coffey, the decision was made by Stefan von Holtzbrinck, CEO of the Holtzbrinck group.[33]
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House, which is owned by the Germany-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Nobel Prizes. As of 2016 the publisher is a division of Macmillan, whose parent company is the German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group, a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles.
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group is a privately held German company headquartered in Stuttgart, that owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies.
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initially owning 53% of the joint venture, and Pearson PLC initially owning the remaining 47%. Since 18 December 2019, Penguin Random House has been wholly owned by Bertelsmann.
Simon & Schuster LLC is an American publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan in New York City. It is headquartered in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under six imprints.
Picador is an imprint of Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom and Australia and of Macmillan Publishing in the United States. Both companies are owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is the educational publishing and services subsidiary of the international corporation Pearson plc. The subsidiary was formed in 1998, when Pearson plc acquired Simon & Schuster's educational business and combined it with Pearson's existing education company Addison-Wesley Longman. Pearson Education was restyled as simply Pearson in 2011. In 2016, the diversified parent corporation Pearson plc rebranded to focus entirely on education publishing and services, and as of 2023 Pearson Education is Pearson plc's main subsidiary.
Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools.
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner on March 31, 2006. Its headquarters are located at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hachette is considered one of the "big five" publishing companies, along with Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. In one year, HBG publishes approximately 1400+ adult books, 300 books for young readers, and 450 audiobook titles. In 2017, the company had 167 books on the New York Times bestseller list, 34 of which reached No. 1.
Bookish.com is a content discovery and ecommerce website, which launched in February 2013, devoted to books. The site allows users to browse an extensive database of books and authors, add books to user-created digital "shelves", get custom book recommendations, read editorial content and purchase physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks.
Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. The company publishes in the fields of American and international fiction, biography, history, politics, science, psychology, health, and children's literature. In the U.S., it operates under Macmillan Publishers.
Times Books is a publishing imprint owned by the New York Times Company and licensed to Henry Holt and Company.
Macmillan Inc. was an American book publishing company originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers. The two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original American division of Macmillan present in McGraw-Hill Education's Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbooks, Gale's Macmillan Reference USA division, and some trade imprints of Simon & Schuster that were transferred when both companies were owned by Paramount Communications.
Lerner Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota since its founding in 1959, is one of the largest independently owned children's book publishers in the United States. With more than 5,000 titles in print, Lerner Publishing Group offers nonfiction and fiction books for grades K-12.
Macmillan Education is a publishing imprint and business which has been owned by various divisions and companies of the Macmillan publishing group and, more recently, the Springer Nature group which is jointly owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners. The company that runs the imprint is based in London and operates in over 120 countries worldwide. As of 2023, Macmillan Education is focused mainly on materials and services for language learning and for teaching international curricula in schools worldwide.
Amazon Publishing is Amazon's book publishing unit launched in 2009. It is composed of 15 imprints including AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, and Topple Books.
John Turner Sargent Jr. is an American book publisher; he was the CEO of Macmillan Publishers USA, and is the executive vice president of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, where he oversees the global trade operations in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia as well as Macmillan Learning, the company's US-based higher education business.
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