In the early 2010s, traditional publishing was assailed by start-up businesses that threatened to up-end the old order. Leaders of these new entities would typically refer to book publishers as legacy businesses, while also attempting to do deals for their content. Names such as Gojimo, Bardowl and Oyster would be whispered reverentially at publisher conferences, as examples of new approaches to what were considered intractable problems.

In the main, the big publishers shrugged their shoulders at the outsider noise. For many start-ups, the slowness of the traditional houses was an irritation, blocking their new concepts from taking flight. But for the legacy players, sitting on rights built up over decades, this coldness was a trump card that they could play forever.

This week, two of my favourites from this time have been in the news. The departure of publisher John Mitchinson, one of the founders of Unbound, from the spin-off business Boundless signals the end of an unhappy run for that firm. Wonderbly, meanwhile, has secured a happier ending, having been acquired this week by Penguin Random House, a deal sparked by DK CEO Paul Kelly, who has proved to be a front-footed leader of his own global division.

For a decade, Wonderbly and Unbound were considered as the two start-ups from that era that could go on – partly because they were not reliant on the bigger players to supply them with content. The original version of Unbound was about crowdfunding book ideas before their creation, using fans as seed investors; Wonderbly – back then called LostMyName – also created its own content, and a personalisation tool and  a network of printers, which enabled it to deliver beautiful gift books to readers, on demand.

The PRH deal is a good example of a so-called legacy business, understanding that not every new trick is a bad one

Wonderbly is now a £50m business, with its last accounts showing an operating profit of around £4m (though its EBITDA was £8m, and would likely have risen over the next financial year). Like many start-ups, it has raised money along the way but, unlike most, has used this well, recently buying adjacent business Historic Newspapers, which has catapulted it into the adult space without undermining its core service. The PRH deal is a good example of a so-called legacy business, understanding that not every new trick is a bad one. DK, in particular, has a bank of content that it might want to see personalised, opening up new markets as well as handy new channels to book buyers; similarly, for Wonderbly, the distribution networks PRH has in place could be a game-changer. Sometimes, scale is really, really handy.

For Unbound the journey is now over. All of its founders have left (two of them years ago), authors have been unpaid and funded projects unrealised. The administrator’s report reveals debts of £2.4m, but Archna Sharma, whose publisher Neem Tree Press was acquired by Unbound in a deal that made little sense at the time and now even less, but from which she emerged as CEO, now says that the crowdfunding model was the problem. Perhaps. Unbound originally rode on a wave of new-model energy, as monetising an audience prior to publication looked to be a smart way of ameliorating costs, as well as circumnavigating the traditional bookshop route to customers. The company talked up the tech-side as a way of attracting investors to something that did not look like a publisher and yet really was one, with all of the uncertainties publishers face and none of the ballast publishers need.

Is this then trad publishing having the last laugh? I have some sympathy with the start-ups, including those that were never going to make the grade, as well as those who were downed by hubris. The book business did always need a good shake-up, but the mistake many have made is to forget that publishers have legacies for a reason.