 | |
| Parent company | Holtzbrinck Publishing Group |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1843; 182 years ago (1843) |
| Founders | |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | London, United Kingdom |
| Key people | Don Weisberg (CEO)[1] Jon Yaged (President)[2] |
| Publication types | Books,academic journals, magazines |
| Revenue | $1.4 billion[3] |
| Official website | macmillan |
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known asthe Macmillan Group; formallyMacmillan Publishers Ltd in the UK andMacmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the US) is a Britishpublishing company traditionally considered to be one of the"Big Five" English language publishers (along withPenguin Random House,Hachette,HarperCollins andSimon & Schuster). Founded inLondon in 1843 by Scottish brothersDaniel andAlexander MacMillan, the firm soon established itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian-era children's literature,Lewis Carroll'sAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) andRudyard Kipling'sThe Jungle Book (1894).[4][5]
FormerPrime 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 ofHoltzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others.
Macmillan was founded in London in 1843 byDaniel andAlexander MacMillan, two brothers from theIsle of Arran, Scotland. Daniel was the business brain, while Alexander laid the literary foundations, publishing such notable authors asCharles Kingsley (1855),Thomas Hughes (1859),Francis Turner Palgrave (1861),Christina Rossetti (1862),Matthew Arnold (1865) andLewis Carroll (1865), with the latter first meeting Alexander in London on 19 October 1863.[6]Alfred, Lord Tennyson joined the list in 1884,Thomas Hardy in 1886 andRudyard Kipling in 1890.[7]
Other major writers published by Macmillan includedW. B. Yeats,Rabindranath Tagore,Nirad C. Chaudhuri,Seán O'Casey,John Maynard Keynes,Charles Morgan,Hugh Walpole,Margaret Mitchell,C. P. Snow,Rumer Godden andRam Sharan Sharma.
Beyond literature, the company created such enduring titles asNature (1869), theGrove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1877) andSir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave'sDictionary of Political Economy (1894–99).
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. andGeorge 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. or Macmillan US). 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 divesting it in 1951, and later re-entered the American market in 1952 under the nameSt. Martin's Press.[8]
Macmillan of Canada was founded in 1905;Maclean-Hunter acquired the company in 1973. Following numerous mergers, Macmillan Canada dissolved in 2002 afterJohn Wiley & Co. acquired it.[9]
Harold Macmillan, grandson of company co-founder Daniel, becamePrime Minister of the United Kingdom (10 January 1957 – 18 October 1963). Earlier, he had been with the family firm as a junior partner from 1920 to 1940 (when he became a junior minister, asUnder-secretary of State for the Colonies), and working with Macmillan Publishers again from 1945 to 1951 while he was also in the opposition in Parliament. After retiring from politics in 1964, he became chairman of the company until 1974, when he handed on the chairmanship to his sonMaurice Macmillan.[10] The latter, having beenPaymaster General in the defeated government ofEdward Heath, also left the government, but within the company took on the more honorary position of president[11] until his death in December 1986.[12]
The GermanHoltzbrinck Publishing Group purchased the company in 1999.[13]
Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America in 1998, following its purchase of theSimon & 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, fromHoughton 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 toThe New York Times, Macmillan and other major publishers "fear that massive discounting [of e-books] by retailers includingAmazon,Barnes & Noble andSony could ultimately devalue what consumers are willing to pay for books." In response, the publisher introduced a newboilerplate 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 theApple iPad on 27 January 2010—a product that comes with access to theiBookstore—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 theagency 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 centcommission.[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.[citation needed] In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filedUnited States v. Apple Inc., namingApple, Macmillan, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices fore-books, and weakenAmazon.com's position in the market, in violation ofantitrust law.[19] 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.[20]
In 2010, Macmillan Education submitted to an investigation on grounds offraudulent practices.[21] The Macmillan division admitted tobribery in an attempt to secure a contract for an education project insouthern Sudan.[21] As a direct result of the investigation, sanctions were applied by theWorld Bank Group, namely a six-yeardebarment (reduced from eight years due to an early acknowledgment of misconduct by the company) declaring the company ineligible to be awarded WBG-financed contracts.[22]
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.[23]
In 2012, parent company Holtzbrinck reorganized; Macmillan's consumer publishing operations were now led byJohn Turner Sargent fromNew York City.[24]
In May 2015, London-based Macmillan Science and Education merged with Berlin-based Springer Science+Business Media to formSpringer Nature, jointly controlled byHoltzbrinck Publishing Group andBC Partners.[25][26] The following month, it dissolved its British-based imprint Boxtree Limited, which Macmillan had operated since 1986.[27]
In January 2019, Toronto, Canada-based online writing communityWattpad 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.[28][29][30]
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.[31]
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 theHoltzbrinck group.[32]
Incorporated on 17 April 1986 | Dissolved on 23 June 2015
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