Holtzbrinck Publishing Group facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group

Parent company	Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH
Status	Private
Founded	1948; 77 years ago (1948)
Founder	Georg von Holtzbrinck
Country of origin	Germany
Headquarters location	Stuttgart, Germany
Distribution	Worldwide
Publication types	Books, Newspapers, Academic journals, Magazines
Imprints	See below
Owner(s)	Monika Schoeller Stefan von Holtzbrinck

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group is a large company from Germany. It owns many publishing companies around the world. These companies publish books, newspapers, and magazines for people everywhere. Holtzbrinck is one of the biggest English-language publishing companies. It achieves this through its part, Macmillan Publishers.

In 2015, Holtzbrinck combined most of its science and education businesses. This included the Nature Publishing Group. They merged with another company called Springer Science+Business Media. This created a new company named Springer Nature. Holtzbrinck owns more than half of this new company.

History of Holtzbrinck Publishing

The Holtzbrinck Publishing Group was started by Georg von Holtzbrinck. After World War II, he began the company again in 1948. It started as a German book club. A book club lets people buy books at a special price.

Growing the Company in Germany

In the 1960s, Holtzbrinck bought several German publishing companies. These included famous names like Droemer, Kindler, Rowohlt, and S. Fischer Verlag. This helped the company grow much larger in Germany.

Expanding to Other Countries

Holtzbrinck started to expand outside Germany in the 1980s. In 1985, they bought the book part of Holt, Rinehart and Winston. They renamed it the Henry Holt Book Company. One year later, they bought Scientific American magazine. This magazine is well-known for science news.

In the 1990s, Holtzbrinck continued to grow. They bought a large part of Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1994. A year later, they bought most of Macmillan Publishers. They bought the rest of Macmillan in 1999. In 2001, Holtzbrinck also bought the Macmillan name in the United States.

Changes in Digital Books

In 2006, Holtzbrinck made a rule for Tor Books, which they own. Tor Books had to stop offering its e-books without special protection. This protection is called digital rights management (DRM). Later, in 2012, this rule changed. Tor books became available as e-books without DRM. This means readers could use them more freely.

The company also bought a popular German social media site called StudiVZ in 2007.

Company Size and Leadership

In 2005, Holtzbrinck had total sales of 2.1 billion euros. Almost half of these sales came from Germany. About a quarter of sales came from North America. The company had 14,000 employees at that time.

Today, Stefan von Holtzbrinck is the chairman of the group. Don Weisberg is the CEO of Macmillan. Macmillan manages the group's businesses in the United States.

Companies and Brands (Imprints)

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group owns many different publishing companies. These companies often have their own brands, called "imprints." An imprint is like a special label for books.

German newspaper Die Zeit in newsstand

In Germany

• S. Fischer Verlag
  • FISCHER Krüger
  • Argon Verlag [de]
  • FISCHER Scherz
• Rowohlt Verlag
• Kiepenheuer & Witsch (85% owned)
• Verlagsgruppe Droemer Knaur (50% owned)
  • O.W. Barth
• Die Zeit (50% owned)

In the United States

These companies use the Macmillan name:

• Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Henry Holt and Company
  • Holt Paperbacks
  • Metropolitan Books
  • Times Books
  • Owl Books
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Picador
• Roaring Brook Press
  • Neal Porter Books
  • First Second Books
• St. Martin's Press
  • Thomas Dunne Books
• Tom Doherty Associates
  • Tor Books
  • Forge Books
• Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group
  • W.H. Freeman
  • Bedford-St. Martin's
  • Worth Publishers
  • Macmillan Learning
• Hayden-McNeil
• Nature Publishing Group
  • Scientific American

Former Companies in the United States

• Renaissance Media: Its books were bought by Holtzbrinck in 2001.
  • Renaissance Books: Its books became part of Holtzbrinck's St. Martin's Press.
  • Audio Renaissance: This company was renamed Macmillan Audio.

In the United Kingdom

• Macmillan Publishers
  • Pan Macmillan
    • Macmillan
    • Pan Books
    • Picador
    • Macmillan Children's Books
    • Campbell Books
    • Priddy Books
    • Boxtree
    • Sidgwick & Jackson
  • Macmillan Education
• Springer Nature (53% owned)
  • Palgrave Macmillan
• Digital Science

See also

In Spanish: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group para niños