Laura Hazard Owens

Barnes and Noble can't seem to get a break. In the wake of losses in its Nook division, Barnes and Noble has been searching for a buyer, but apparently nobody is really interested in the device business and I don't blame them. The days of the stand-alone eReader have come and gone.

On the heels of the announced Penguin/Random House merger, Laura Hazard Owen at PaidContent has a piece about preliminary talks between HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. HC parent company News Corp,  was reportedly ready to make a cash bid to acquire Penguin once its talks with Random House became public.

While Random Penguin was a meme goldmine, HarperSchuster doesn't seem quite as hashtag friendly.

With the vaunted "Big 6" set to become a "Big 5" and possibly a "Big 4", we expect someone, somewhere to report rumors of talks between Hachette and Macmillan in 3…2…1…

—Brian Howard

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