The dinosaurs died out because they couldn’t understand what a meteor was or how it worked or how to protect themselves from it. Willfully ignoring the fact that a merger between Penguin and Random House could lead to further homogenization and stagnation in the industry because neither of those houses are doing anything innovate and are now discussing teaming up to continue not being innovative is you basically looking at the meteor that is Amazon and running for the ruined shelter you never rebuilt after the whole industry almost collapsed the first time.

 It’s not “more clout” you need to save yourselves from Amazon. It’s the ability to look at what Amazon is doing and aping the hell out of it for your own uses. Or, if you don’t want to ape the hell out of what they’re doing, use it as a starting point to figure out what you do want to do to go toe-to-toe with Amazon that isn’t the same old trick in a different decade. 

For an industry that won’t shut up about how corporate Amazon is and how it’s ruining your creative business, you’re certainly happy to cheer on two of the big kids as they plan to retaliate in the very corporate way.