If you’re working on academic or professional projects for adults or academic projects for juvenile readers, you’ll want to keep an eye on the top publishers. As of mid-2014, they were:
Pearson
Reed Elsevier
Thomson/Reuters
Wolters Kluwer
Pearson posted $9.33 billion in revenue for 2013. All four held the same positions for 2012.
The largest trade publisher was Random House, with revenues of $3.66 billion in 2013.
McGraw-Hill, which includes McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings (higher education, professional, and international operations) and McGraw-Hill School Education Holdings (elhi and testing) had revenue of $1.99 billion that year.
Along with Cengage Learning, these publishers accounted for 54% of total revenues generated by the top 50 publishers worldwide.