Well, that didn’t take long. Just three years and change after buying Author Solutions (ASI) from venture capital firm Bertram Capital, Penguin Random House has sold the company to an affiliate of Najafi Companies, another venture capital firm. In 2012, Penguin’s then-owner, Pearson, paid $116 million for Author Solutions, not long before Penguin merged with Random House. Terms of the most recent deal were not disclosed. The sale was finalized December 31st and was announced earlier this week.
I hope we’re all familiar by now with Author Solutions’ schtick: the reassuring websites of its many, many imprints; the claims that you, too, can be a successful author by publishing your book with them; the high initial costs, the constant upselling, the disastrous “editing,” and the boxes and boxes of books in the garage that the hapless author will never be able to unload. Continue reading “Random Penguin Kicks Author Solutions to the Curb”
