MLex: Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster Merger Won't Affect Literary Agents' Options, First Defense Witness Says

Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, the first defense witness in the Department of Justice’s trial challenging Penguin Random House’s merger with Simon & Schuster, testified on Wednesday that the number of publishers competing to acquire a book is not as significant as relationships with individual editors and imprints. Abby Rudzin, counsel for Penguin Random House, asked Walsh if she thought the merger would hurt advances paid to authors. “I don’t,” Walsh said. “In 2013, when Random House merged with Penguin, there was a lot of anxiety around that, and in the fullness of time, we see that advances continue to rise and authors are very happy. And I always think that the best predictor of the future is the past, and I feel very confident in that.”

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