Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK) has been acquired by Simon & Schuster, one of the Big Five publishers in the US (owned by private equity group KKR). S&S CEO Jonathan Karp wrote to staff, “International publishing will be one of the key areas of growth for Simon & Schuster. … In joining with VBK, we believe that together we can grow the audience for Dutch language authors in the Netherlands, Belgium, and throughout the world.”
VBK owns Bookchoice, a subscription platform for ebooks and audiobooks, as well as Thinium, the largest audiobook producer in the Netherlands. VBK will operate independently. Learn more.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
