Maybe Bertelsmann ...

... should buy Knight Ridder: Why German, French, and British companies are devouring American publishers. Consider this:

For American companies, book publishing is a slow-growth niche business. For the Europeans, it's something quite different. These foreign companies that now own U.S. publishers generally lack the scale of U.S. media conglomerates. Pearson and Lagardère have market capitalizations of about $10 billion and $11 billion, respectively. And French and German companies operate in home markets that lack much in the way of organic growth. To them, a near-stagnant U.S. market represents a rich, comparatively rapidly growing market. For a French or German manager, a business that grows by 2.5 percent a year is handily beating the pace of domestic economic growth.

But consider this, too, -- especially if you're looking to make a killing from your next book -- from the Grumpy Old Bookman: Das Book.