Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature

by Dan Sinykin

In the late 1950s, Random House editor Jason Epstein would talk jazz with Ralph Ellison or chat with Andy Warhol while pouring drinks in his office. By the 1970s, editors were poring over profit-and-loss statements. The electronics company RCA bought Random House in 1965, and then other large corporations purchased other formerly independent publishers. As multinational conglomerates consolidated the industry, the business of literature—and literature itself—transformed.

Dan Sinykin explores how changes in the publishing industry have affected fiction, literary form, and what it means to be an author. Giving an inside look at the industry’s daily routines, personal dramas, and institutional crises, he reveals how conglomeration has shaped what kinds of books and writers are published. Sinykin examines four different sectors of the publishing mass-market books by brand-name authors like Danielle Steel; trade publishers that encouraged genre elements in literary fiction; nonprofits such as Graywolf that aspired to protect literature from market pressures; and the distinctive niche of employee-owned W. W. Norton. He emphasizes how women and people of color navigated shifts in publishing, arguing that writers such as Toni Morrison allegorized their experiences in their fiction.

Big Fiction features dazzling readings of a vast range of novelists—including E. L. Doctorow, Judith Krantz, Renata Adler, Stephen King, Joan Didion, Cormac McCarthy, Chuck Palahniuk, Patrick O’Brian, and Walter Mosley—as well as vivid portraits of industry figures. Written in gripping and lively prose, this deeply original book recasts the past six decades of American fiction.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Writing, Books About Books, Economics, Criticism, Audiobook

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2023

Reviews

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎]

I really loved about 1/3 of this book and the struggle I had was that this excellent third of a book was interspersed with and continually interrupted by unwelcome and distracting anecdotes and I have no idea who thought these were necessary or advisable, such as:

"E.L. Doctorow stood at the podium to accept the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award for Fiction. Fifty-nine years old, he had won the NBCC once before for RAGTIME, in 1975, and the National Book Award for WORLD'S FAIR in 1986. But now he was not in a celebratory mood. He looked out from his warm eyes set beneath his pronounced male pattern baldness..."

This chapter opening is one example of the unnecessary and distracting approximations of the techniques of narrative journalism that thread themselves through the book. A better approximation would have chosen to open with an active scene, not a guy standing there with his 'warm eyes set beneath his pronounced male pattern baldness.'

But more important, what is this kind of writing doing in this book? The marketing discussions are interesting. They don't need to be jazzed up. Again and again the good points of the book were vagued over by this quest to make the book zingy.

And it's not just the limp anecdotes I was distracted by. It's also the hyperbolic tone. For instance. Was it really necessary to name a chapter "How Women Resisted Sexism and Reinvented the Novel"? I don't think so. This kind of writing might work in WIRED or ROLLING STONE, where hyperbole is part of the charm, but in this book, with such an important subject, I wasn't charmed.

[Stephen Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good complement to Al Silverman's wonderful "The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors," showing how the conglomerization of publishing, especially in the 1970s and '80s, has affected what is published--and not published. That is, when some publishers stopped being cultural charities run by wealthy dilettantes mostly interested in collecting great authors the way others collected art, and started to be more business-minded, the literary books that only sold a few thousand copies despite being "sophisticated" and "cosmopolitan," to use Sinykin's loaded terms, were pushed out or their authors turned to "genre strategies" to make them more commercial.

And I have to say, I don't see what's so wrong with that. I certainly don't see what's wrong with a "literary" author making a book entertaining. To me, it smacks of snobbery. As Steve Martin's character in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" would have told Susan Sontag, "Next time you tell a story, have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener."

Before I go on, my bona fides: I've been a book editor for more than 30 years, starting when p&ls had to be run by the VP because only she had a copy of Lotus, and conglomeriztion has both enabled my career (by clearing out more senior editors so I could get their books) and hindered it (I've been laid off 3 times and narrowly escaped a fourth following mergers). I got started at Avon in 1993, and I had to come to understand their mass market sensibilities because I came there straight from getting a Masters in English; that said, the best book I read during my time in grad school was "The Hunt for Red October," so this wasn't a big leap. It was there that I passed on the paperback rights to "Fight Club" because I loved my job and couldn't appreciate it (then came lay off #1....) In addition, I've always seen myself as a businessperson who publishers, not an editor who has to pretend to do business sometimes, so maybe I've drunk the conglomeration Kool-Aid. As a result, this book's argument speaks directly to me, and while I've never worked at Random and the events of the book came largely just before my time in publishing, I know this world intimately

I don't disagree with many of Sinykin's conclusions, especially in how other, smaller publishers who could bear a 4,000-copy first print run have picked up the literary slack. I certainly agree that publishing used to be way more fun; I got to Avon when it was still OK to drink and smoke in your office, but you could no longer snort coke or have sex on your desk. And I totally agree that the expectations of corporate overlords who want 8-10% growth out of a 3-4% business, as if books were financial instruments, have made doing any book harder; when Harper bought Avon, for instance, they sent over a new p&l that was pretty much the same as ours except it had a $20,000 charge against every book regardless of financial expectations, a ridiculous vig that made publishing all but leads impossible (or financially irresponsible). I agree (or at least I think Sinykin would agree with me) that who got published should not be determined by who had the pedigree to get invited to have drinks at Jason Epstein's apartment, and it's still the case that the more a publisher pays for a book, the more attention it gets in-house. I don't, however, entirely buy that "Ragtime," "Beloved" and other books are about publishing itself and not, say, about conglomerization in general, a feature in all business at the time; it's why Gulf & Western owned S&S; but whatever. I totally disagree with his view on why Patrick O'Brien finally become successful: it wasn't because he's a literary writer (he's not, imho), but because a marketer/publicist like Esther Margolis worked to get him a great, prominent review that resurrected his books--just as "Moby Dick" was rescued from history 70 years after pub.

What I really had a problem with, is that his view of publishing is constrained by his research, however extensive.

For instance, why didn't he talk to any editors directly? Many of the people profiled are still alive. Every single one of them as well as all those who came after them would tell Sinykin the same thing: Big books pay for little books. For instance, why could Little, Brown take a chance on lit? James Patterson. Why could Knopf? Crichton and Anne Rice. Why could FSG? Scott Turow and Tom Wolfe. Why could Norton? Their huge educational division, plus Michael Lewis. Just as Graywolf and Coffee House and Milkweed depend on charity, just as publishers in the first part of the century relied on the deep pockets of their owners and their banks (Silverman notes that the founder of Viking sold out because he was sick of waking up every morning owing the banks $7-8 million), publishers depend on their cash cows, especially those that backlist (which pays for everything: salary, overhead, etc.). And this makes sense. Granted I came out of mass market publishing in which each monthly list was like a mutual fund. The sturdy investments pay for the fliers you hope hit and the authors you want to build into sturdy investments.

Sinykin also mentions lots of great writers that got pubd, as if to argue that they wouldn't have been pubd today, but he doesn't balance that by showing all the ones whose books failed and cost their publishers money as well as the opportunity cost of publishing someone whose book might have worked. You learn nothing from winners. In losses are the lessons. And how much did the publishers have to pay for all this prestige? Were most advances not earned out back then? There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but you can't prestige yourself into the poorhouse. (Well, you can, but it's not smart.)

And I think Sinykin confuses the book's argument by folding into literature titles by people non-white and non-male. The reasons they weren't getting published back then rhyme with those for why conglomerization made publishing lit more challenging at the big publisher level, but really it's a different issue. Or he could have included them by changing his argument to not being about how conglomeration changed lit, but about how it changed risk.

Nonetheless, the book's well-written, despite some repetition of facts, I enjoyed it, and it's a book I'll be recommending to my colleagues precisely because there's stuff to disagree with, which makes a book more fun.

Thanks to Net Galley and Columbia UP for the early look.

[Gregory Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening and unsuccessful. Sinykin dispels romantic notions of authorial authority but, instead, expounds on the bounty of publishing figures that have brought major (American) novelists to the forefront of the cultural consciousness (both when it comes to popular and literary fiction). As such, he exposes the ways in which conglomeration in the 60s instigates new relationships between authors and their work, even to the extent that he goes on to analyze specific novels, like Ragtime and Beloved and Fight Club, as works that are actually about the position of the author in a further consumerist system. I don't totally buy his readings, not because I think there is no merit but because I wished for tighter close readings of specific sequences from the novels instead of Sinykin's method of referencing scenes without offering many quotes. I comprehend the gestures he makes, yet he fails to bring me aboard his train of thought. Also, for a book this short (220 or so pages without the endnotes/index), the redundancies ache and ache until you've come across a sentiment stated enough times that you feel rather bludgeoned. His penchant for adding novelistic detail grates. Completely unnecessary for a work that appears to posit itself as a mixture of the academic and the populist. Sporadically corny.

Anyway, not as good or in-depth as I desire, but this works as a readable introduction to the recent history of American publishing. I appreciate Sinykin's rhetorical move to not take on a moralizing tone about the demon that is conglomeration. His goal to uncover the manner in which conglomeration has produced new authorial desires and that those desires have reshaped the contemporary novel invigorates more than a plainly moralistic analysis would.

[Chris Molnar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just in terms of aggregating raw information, this is essential. For anyone who gazes at a bookshelf and thinks "why the fuck am I looking at _____?", which should be you if it isn't already.

Because nothing comes to you without a story, and the fact that American fiction is both the most and least read of all the fictions makes it the most interesting, with no ethno-state bullshit to prop it up, just capital and the slipstreams around it. Writing functionally but with a panoply of familiar names and unusual tidbits to keep you engaged, Sinykin talks conglomeration but also the nonprofits, the independents - everybody from the 50s to the present.

The tone's as neutral as you can get - this is our (American) writing. Hard to say if something better could've happened instead. Point is, the reasons you're reading it are provisional. Unlike any other kind of art, writing is real marginal stuff, and whether business is good or bad, true weirdos are always slipping in somehow. The books you read are the end result of both idiosyncratic gatekeepers and huge corporate machines, with the writer only one tiny part who is always writing with these things in mind, even if unconsciously or antagonistically. When their stories are great, when something true emerges, the machine works and becomes invisible.

More often, the fiction is bad, but I still think the story of the machine that makes it is really interesting. And, in any case, here is that story.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

there are a lot of reviews extolling the virtues of this book and good interviews where the core argument is explained, but the main thing that struck me about this book that I haven't seen discussed much is the variety of work done. in so many books like this--books about institutional histories--I walk away happy for the information, but not sure how it helps us understand the novels produced through those institutions. in addition to the detailed histories of conglomeration in publishing provided here, the book also provides readings of novels produced by those conditions that illustrate how the material conditions discussed affect the novels. really astonishing to see how this institutional framework provides new, compelling readings of, like, infinite jest, beloved, and tropic of orange. comparing the book to mcgurl's the program era isn't an original insight, but it is this specific aspect--the book's ability to show you why the institutional framework matters and how you can hold it in hand going forward--that reminds me of the program era.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without being disparaging, this is a mix of commodification theory, literary sociology, and gossip. There's nothing wrong with that. What Sinykin focuses on is what I call conglomerature: the works of Danielle Steel, Stephen King, James Patterson, and a wide range of midlist writers who help the large publishers (Penguin House, say) keep their image up (publishing White writers mostly, and writers who are lucky to be somewhat critically acclaimed and sell 4,000 or 5,000 copies, not enough to live on, but good for snaring [or emanating from] an MFA teaching position) as producers of quality writing. The chapters on non-profits and W.W. Norton were different, but still pitched in a binary way: conglomerate behemoth versus small independent.

There are a few good stories and some humour, in case someone wonders if this is a dry book.

[endrju]

An interesting look on contemporary literature, especially on how its aesthetics are shaped by corporate capital and the push to make profit. What lacks here is a deeper Marxist engagement with the material, though Sinykin references Bourdieu, given the perspective. Accidently I've just began reading Katja Praznik's Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism and her approach is deeper in relating artists, labor, and capital. It's the notion of labor that is, weirdly, missing in Sinykin's analysis and, in particular, labor in/through art or, rather, literary arts as labor. I couldn't but notice that Sinykin somewhat struggles with the notion and position of the literary author but, with "red feminist" stance like Praznik's, he might've been able to further his quite encompassing critique. He would've analyzed the prevailing misogyny and racism in publishing better as well.

[Bjørn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am autistic with a side heap of ADHD. People like me develop special interests, and once we do, we want to know EVERYTHING. The publishing industry is one of my special interests. I baulked at a 186 quid PDF (the ePub version is now available on the Columbia University Press website for mere $29.99) so I was delighted to get approval from NetGalley and receive a free copy. This did not influence my review.

University presses really hate selling books. (The hardcover is $100.) It's a bit ironic to read a book about Big Publishing, especially the parts focused around sales and acquisitions, released by an institution allergic to readers. It's also unedited, which I think is normal with university presses, but in this case would have made a world of a difference. Because while out of the 300 pages of the PDF the first 60 are 'Introduction' and the last 40 'Glossary', not to mention 'Conclusion' which is not really a conclusion but an extra chapter with sub-chapters, those pages are absolutely packed with information.

I took lots of notes. And some of them are delightful. 'To make every American woman aware of Danielle Steel,” wrote Walters, “Dell will spend $300,000” (about $1.4 million in 2022 dollars) “on every promotion gimmick known to the book trade, from television, radio, and newspaper advertising to shopping bags and spectacular bookstore displays.”' I had no idea Danielle Steel was manufactured by the publisher. 'The author of a history of mass-market paperbacks that was published in 1984 ended his account with disdain for what the format had become: “product is the only fair term to describe the current output of the paperback industry. The paperback business in the 1980s is characterized by a failure of imagination, crass pandering to lowest-common-denominator tastes, and a slavish adherence to supposedly sound management practices that limit creativity and risk taking.”' This author is probably employed at an university press now. 'Soon tours had become so popular that they had led to “author gridlock.” Too many authors were competing with each other, and too many lacked the media training to make it worth their publisher’s while. By 1998, Publishers Weekly declared that “the heyday of literary author tours is clearly over.”' That didn't age well, Publishers Weekly.

I kept the order in which those excerpts appear in the book, though. We move from 1978 to 1984 to 1998. In the meantime, the launch of Nielsen BookScan in 2001 happens. This plagues the entire book. There is neither chronological, nor logical coherence to it (the chapter on Norton Press being an exception). Big Fiction meanders between focusing on one author, one press, the industry at large, a star agent, back to the author, anecdotes from Sinykin's meetings with authors and publishers alike, genres… I have taken eight weeks to read it, because reading it is work, while I felt the author enjoyed writing it very much. Which is not a bad thing, but I felt like I should have read it a few times before being able to read it and retain the information.

To my great (positive) surprise, self-publishing actually receives more than a mention in 'Conclusion'. So does the infamous case of the American court blocking the merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, and in the meantime I found out how convoluted the history of those has already been:

'Times Mirror, a newspaper company, bought New American Library (NAL), a mass-market publisher, in 1960, inaugurating what I call the conglomerate era. Times Mirror hired McKinsey, a consulting firm, to restructure NAL, with dire results that I chronicle in the first chapter. The previous year—1959—Random House became the first major house to go public and used the influx of cash to acquire Knopf in 1960. In 1961, it acquired Pantheon—hiring André Schiffrin in 1962. In 1965, RCA, an electronics company, acquired Random House. Doubleday acquired radio and television stations in 1967, and the New York Mets in 1980. Time Inc. acquired Little, Brown in 1968. A Canadian communications company acquired Macmillan in 1973. Bantam went to IFI, an Italian conglomerate that owned Fiat, the car company, in 1974. Simon & Schuster went to Gulf + Western in 1975, Fawcett to CBS in 1977. As we will see, it hardly stopped there. [...] [In] 1991, at the position from which its president, Richard Snyder, could say with impressive frankness, “We are not a publisher, we are now a creator of copyrights for their exploitation in any medium or distribution system.” Books were now content.'

This is what I came for! What follows is what I as a reviewer call 'unfortunately'. (A mess.) Long story short, the author has chosen a[n un]certain format – the chapters often focus on one author, such as Steel or Toni Morrison (there's a surprising number of references to Toni Morrison specifically throughout the book), but constantly takes detours. Unless it's the authors that are the detours. I'm not sure. Sometimes Big Fiction focuses on the format, as its chapter titles suggest. (Trade paperbacks got a lot of hate in the industry, because they sold too well, thus cheapening the art of writing, which is the sort of snobbery that continues to this day.) Then it's about Chuck Palahniuk. With a bit about Toni Morrison and agents' nicknames. ('Binky!') The bibliography of Irvine Welsh. All of this is – to me – very entertaining. But it doesn't feel like finished work; it feels like a compilation of research notes. The fact that what I received from NetGalley was an uncropped PDF, where half of the page was blank space – and which didn't even contain links to the footnotes, and footnotes are already next to useless in e-books – didn't help.

Conclusion: I have no regrets. I have learned a lot, enjoyed a lot, took a lot of breaks, and got whiplash. Recommended for people who have a special interest in publishing industry and don't have ADHD. And buy $100 hardcovers.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever else they are, books are products made to be sold. Books have always been commercial products, despite our desire to think of them as something quite different from shoes or cars or breakfast cereal, as ART and therefore not subject to the realities of the grubby capitalist marketplace. But whatever else they are—and I love books and reading and think they’re terrifically important, so clearly they matter to me more, or at least differently, than breakfast cereal (I don’t even like breakfast cereal, actually)—they are indeed products made for an audience that is expected to shell out money to access them. And this book is about that marketplace, how changes in the way publishing happens in the United States in particular has affected the way books, specifically novels, are written and made and circulated. And it was really interesting.

[Archie Hamerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Post-45 criticism is constantly arguing that post-45 literature is forever allegorising the conditions of its own production, then a literary critical account OF those conditions (and the conglomerate publishing industry’s creation of a corporate aesthetic, that merges the best seller and the prize winner and the middle brow) that uses the narrative style appropriate for a trade audience is very very clever indeed

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the influence of changes in the publishing industry on fiction in the US. Reading this made me aware just how little mainstream fiction I've read -- and while I am not about to run out and start reading a bunch of Danielle Steel novels, I am now curious to read at least some of the titles mentioned. But I don't need more additions to my To-Read list, so what I appreciated most about the book was the history of publishing, both the business history of the various companies and imprints, and also following the careers of various editors and authors. I love the glossary of publishing figures at the back, so if you get confused about who's who, you can look them up. I most enjoyed the chapters about the development of Nonprofit publishing and about the independents (mostly focused on Norton, which is employee-owned, and the last big independent standing). But the whole book is very much worth reading if you have any curiosity about how the literary landscape in this country is shaped.

[Breann Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big Fiction provides a succinct and well-argued look at the publishing industry. That being said, in some ways, it's not for "beginners"-- I occasionally felt like an outsider looking in, not fully read into the insider knowledge that might have hit some of the points home for me. But on the whole, I think I picked up most of the relevant parts from context clues and generally astuteness. It's probably not a book for everyone-- I'd recommend it only for people who want a deep dive on the publishing industry from 1950-1990 specifically, which may or may not be a lot of people, idk.

Might be time to reorganize my book collection by publisher/imprint and conduct a statistical analysis to see how highbrow my taste in literature is....

[Zori]

Якось мене запросили не вечерю, де я не знала нікого окрім хоста. І всі там розмовляли про машини і своїх дітей, а оскільки у мене не було ні першого, ні других, то я так і просиділа весь вечір мовчки з келихом в одній руці, з телефоном в іншій. Ось десь так приблизно і слухалась ця книга(((

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important read for me, though sometimes boring! Introduced me to new authors and elevated my language. Written by a former professor. Inspires me to read more novels

[Will Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

BIG FICTION is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why "Big Five" publishing is in the (screwed up) state it is. To wit, our increasingly fewer (thanks to conglomeration) New York publishing houses throw more and more money at fewer and fewer authors. This changes everything, as Dan Sinykin explains in a clear, methodical, and causal analysis of American publishing.

[Karen Carlson]

some day I'm going to read a series of books about books.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come for the fun facts (W.W. Norton published Fight Club?!) stay for the fascinating study of conglomerate authorship.

[sheesania · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading this as a would-be author with a decent understanding of modern commercial publishing, and a somewhat lacking education in 20th century American fiction. There is a ton of great information and contextualization here that is very hard to find elsewhere, but it will be dauntingly dense if you don't have a solid foundational understanding of the publishing industry - or if, like me, you're not familiar with many of the referenced authors.

My big takeaway was WOW, the publishing industry has changed immensely just in the last 50 years. (BookScan did not exist when I was born!) How much more is it going to change in the next 50 years when I might hypothetically have a career?

It's also striking how much which books are published is driven by 1) the financial structure of different publishing houses (Sinykin compares big 5, nonprofits, and employee-owned Norton), and 2) the tastes and intuitions of specific editors and booksellers. (For instance: the head bookbuyer at Barnes and Noble has a terrifying amount of power.) The story about Patrick O'Brian's near-miss with the Aubrey/Maturin books, and the way Norton was finally able to capitalize on the appeal of genre fiction with a strong literary foundation, is particularly memorable. Also the acquisition of Fight Club.

Also: did reading peak in America in the 1950s with the explosion of GI-Bill funded education and the relative lack of screens? Maybe...maybe not. Sinykin is very positive on the potential of audiobooks to create entirely new markets for books - something I'm increasingly noticing among people my age.

Recommended if you are a nerd about the publishing industry, but if you're not already familiar with concepts like big 5, how agenting works, subsidiary rights, etc, this book is probably going to be very boring.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC of this title.

This does a masterful job of threading the needle between academic research of this era of publishing and making that accessible for someone like me. This occasionally falls back on the more dissertation-y "here's what I'm going to talk about in this chapter, [talks about the topic], in my next chapter I will talk about", but when it just gets down to covering case studies of how authors, editors, and publishing houses of all types adapted or reacted to the conglomeration that happened from the fifties through today, it really shines.

[Daniel]

The Man Who Invented Fantasy. tweet.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Big Fiction" by Dan Sinykin is a literary rollercoaster that takes you on a wild ride through a landscape of imagination and intellect. Sinykin weaves a tapestry of intricate stories, each one a universe of its own. The characters are vibrant, flawed, and utterly human, making it impossible not to invest emotionally in their journeys.

What sets this book apart is Sinykin's ability to seamlessly blend genres. It's part mystery, part fantasy, and entirely engaging. The narrative unfolds with rhythmic prose that keeps you hooked from the first page to the last. The author's exploration of big ideas – from the nature of storytelling to the essence of humanity – adds layers of depth to the novel.

"Big Fiction" is not just a book; it's an experience. Sinykin's writing is a literary dance, and readers will find themselves twirling through a captivating narrative that challenges and entertains in equal measure. If you're a fan of bold storytelling and enjoy getting lost in the intricate maze of a well-crafted narrative, this book is a must-read. Sinykin has delivered a literary masterpiece that leaves a lasting imprint on the soul.

[Joey]

dnd’d

[Victoria Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you read books you should read this book

[Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely an academic text, but very interesting!

[Kevin Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this one from a patreon comment.

An scholarly examination of the book publishing industry and its overall conglomeration from 1950-2000ish, this book is quite dry at times and full of characters that all blend together (high powered, brilliant, sexist in a Mad Men style).

However, the book shines when it examines how forces of conglomeration have shaped the contemporary concept of genre and then how a few authors have been turned into superstars through this niche genre focus was fascinating. Particularly looking at Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison (everyone's high-brow friends favs) were really cool. Dryily LOLing at some points-the marketing campaign for Infinite Jest comes to mind. Loved the chapter on independent presses such as Graywolf

[Ivan Gaalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this fascinating new study, Emory University English professor Dan Sinykin tells the story of how the American publishing industry has changed over the last half-century. Not only has consolidation, or conglomeration, changed how literature is published, but it has also changed the content of literature itself.

Before the 1960s, American publishing was a boutique industry, run as small family-owned publishing "houses." Editors worked closely with writers to produce quality literary fiction. Writers had control over their work, and they were more or less protected from the pressures of mass-market genre paperbacks.

For Sinykin, 1960 marked the beginning of the "conglomerate era." Publishers with greater calculation began following the money. Industry giants began swallowing family-run boutiques and smaller mass-market publishers, leaving us today with what is known as the Big Five. The Big Five almost became the Big Four had not the DOJ stepped in to block the Penguin Random House acquisition of Simon & Schuster.

How does conglomeration change the nature of literature? In the quest for profits, the Big Five focus on brand-name authors and formulaic works of genre fiction. Of the six bestselling authors of the late 1980s and early 1990s, five still dominate the bestseller lists today. Whatever works is repeated ad infinitum. Editors, marketing, and distributing play a more significant role in producing fiction, whereas the author plays a lesser role in the process. At the end of the day, the author is just a cog in the machine, and literary fiction has become just one genre among many.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

catnip for anyone who ever commented "didn't this book have an editor?"

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Columbia University Press for an advance copy of this book dealing with the changes in the publishing business since the end of World War II and how this has changed the reading habits of people, and effected the careers of certain authors, casting some into obscurity, and meteoric heights for others.

Over the long time that I have been involved in the book trade, there have been a huge amount of changes, some small, some huge, and some that were big for some, but never noticed by the general populous. This is has been a trend in most media companies. People come in with money, hate the old way, create a new way. Most of this instead of being great business ideas costs these companies money, or even worse lost time. Film companies never understand streaming, music companies also not understanding downloads. Even the comic industry has a habit of shooting itself in the foot every time they have a growth. Changing distribution, causing chaos, thinking speculation was actually good for their industry, pricing. Publishing though always had this way of acting different. Old houses, old authors, friends of friends publishing books. Until the sharks came sniffing blood. Big Fiction by Dan Sinykin is a look at how an industry went from many companies down to a few, who a few stayed their course, and the effect all this had on the reading habits of people, and the rise and fall of literary writing and authors.

The cover grabs one immediately, the color, the look when trade paperbacks were making inroads, and people were drawn immediately to the look and style, not even seeing what the book was about, nor caring. A time when hot young things were given book contracts to write hot novels that addressed the time, while other stodgy authors were given the heave ho, or moved off to publishers who knew how to cater to there kind of writing. Sinykin has broken his book down into 6 section, looking at the influence of the mass market books, and how chasing these sales put publishers on the radar of companies looking for profit, at the expense of writing. The trade market and nonfiction, along with a look at publishers who resists change by either remaining independent, or in some instances nonprofit publishers. Sinykin looks at many writers who either changed with the times, were left behind, and how their time in publishing can be reflected in their writings.

A different look at publishers, not only looking at the shrinking market, and the changes, but how this changed the literary history of America, which the book mostly deals with. Writing about the French publishing system would be a multi-volume set, and that would be just on feuds. The layout is interesting, a historical look, with plenty of examples, and views of what has changed. Sinykin has tracked these changes using Publisher's Weekly, and draws a lot of different conclusions, that Sinykin pretty well backs up. I would like more input on the retail end, the chain bookstores I know have tremendous influence, with their own prepaid bestsellers lists, and even worse how Amazon made things even worse. An interesting look at publishing, and one I am sure will draw a lot of pro and con arguments.

Recommended for people interested in publishing history or books in general. People who have worked retail will recognize much of this, and go yup, called it. Business leaders can learn quite a lot on what not to do, but as media corporations seem not to learn lessons, that might be a lot to ask. A very good book, with a lot of things to make one nod one's head in agreement, or nod away in distress and anger.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know that meme with the person working out complex formulas on a glass screen before them? Or the older TV trope of a wall of pictures and newspaper clippings joined by a web of red thread? I felt like that a lot while reading this book. There is a veritable torrent of information—names, characters, publishers, writers, editors—all connected to each other with red webbing. I decided eventually to just read, and not try to put it all together, and was much happier when I did. And maybe that’s the point of the book, which reviews the arc from around 1960 to the present during which conglomeration accelerated in American publishing: the history of US publishing is a complex web that needs dedicated study to make sense of it.

There are a lot of takeaways. I understood, finally, the origin and raison d’etre of some of my favourite publishers: Graywolf Press, Deep Vellum and Dalkey Archive Press, Coffee House Press, and even W. W. Norton. And why some of the best writing (and writing in English translation) comes from there. I finally made sense of what is an often bewildering layer cake of imprints at the big publishing houses (:conglomeration). I was able to see why and how US publishing remained white and male for so long, and then the place in it of Black giants like Toni Morrison and Percival Everett, and Asian American ones like Maxine Hong Kingston. Also the rise and success of genre authors like Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Grisham, Clancy, Crichton, Koontz. Big Fiction also manages to make a little sense of the NYT bestseller lists for me—why they exist, and why I can never agree with them.

As a work of literary history, Big Fiction truly succeeds. Not only does it chart the rise and rise of conglomeration, but along the way, it also introduces readers to a vast cast of characters in US publishing. It details the rise of agents and the changes in power dynamics between them and editors; the rise of the non-profit publishers in opposition to the big commercial houses (my favourite part, and a fascinating section; I gained a lot of knowledge on this); sexism and racism in US publishing, and the path-making people who came first—including the astounding early women; the impact of literary prizes on what gets published, and when; and Big Fiction even touches upon the beefs between great authors like Percival Everett and Alice Walker, and Frank Chin vs. Maxine Hong Kingston (I know which side I take on both by the way). However, this is not always an accessible read for the casual reader; some of the generous amount of detail is best suited to people studying literature and the publishing industry.

Because the author’s main topic is conglomeration, he doesn’t deal with the small presses of the 1960s and ‘70s (many Black, many female-led, etc) that fell by the wayside in the economic turmoil of the 1970s. (He mentions Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in passing.) There’s quite a lot about Everett and Morrison, and their struggles in publishing; also the impact of those non-profit publishers mentioned above on making the publishing scene (on the author’s side, anyway) much less white, and much more international. It’s also really interesting to read detail about the ups and downs of Random House, and why it looks the way it does today. Also W. W. Norton, as the one that stands apart. The contrast between the early years of publishing—when characters like Jason Epstein stood out; he treated women in really nasty ways—and the present, where a book on the market has come about through the work of many teams and departments, is the thing that Big Fiction makes clear is a result of conglomeration. Sinykin leaves it to the reader to decide if that’s good for authors, or not.

US publishing is the behemoth that shapes reading tastes worldwide. I am very glad to have read this, as a lover of literature, and one who did not really understand before how US publishing works. Many thanks to Columbia University Press and to Edelweiss for access to a DRC.
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Side note: For more about the impact of US publishing on what the rest of the world reads, check out this article: Vermeulen, P., & Hurkens, A. (2019). The Americanization of World Literature? American Independent Publishing and the World Literary Vernacular. Interventions, 22(3), 433–450.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"On June 6, 1977, John Brooks, John Hersey, and Herman Wouk, representing the Authors Guild--an advocacy group for professional writers--held a press conference at which they 'called for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to start proceedings that would eventually end the process of mergers and acquisitions in the book publishing industry.' Wouk was quoted in the Washington Post the next day calling conglomeration 'a sinister process,' noting that 'in a conglomerate there is a narrowing down of margins--of what is safe and what is publishable,' given the responsibility to shareholders" (6).

""Dell would print 1,200,000 copies of The Promise in its first run. 'To make every American woman aware of Danielle Steel,' wrote Walters, 'Dell will spend $300,000 (about $1.4 million in 2022 dollars) 'on every promotion gimmick known to the book trade, from television, radio, and newspaper advertising to shopping bags and spectacular bookstore displays (49-50).

"Lester [of Del Ray] contrived a formula. 'The books would be original novels set in invented worlds in which magic works. Each would have a male central character who triumphed over the forces of evil (usually associated with technical knowledge of some variety) by innate virtue, and with the help of a tutor or tutelary spirit.' [...] David Hartwell, an envious editor at Tor Books, later explained to the New York Times, 'Mr del Ray had codified a children's literature that could be sold as adult. It was nostalgic, conservative, pastoral, and optimistic.' And it worked" (62).

"E.L. Doctorow became a prophet of decline. In 2003, he delivered the Massey Lectures at Harvard. He warned, 'Our voices are constricted by the censorship of the marketplace. The entertainment behemoths that finance us are finding us a bad investment" (69).

"...'at the end of the 1980s, a little more than 1,000 degrees in creative writing were awarded each year. By 2013, close to 6,500 were awarded.' As important as the aesthetic training MFA students receive is the letterhead. Graduates of the Iowa Writers workshop are 49 times more likely to win a major literary prize than graduates of any other program; other programs are further scaled by status" (163).

"How did Norton manage to do what no one else could? For one reason, above all, it is employee owned. Participatory governance fostered a fiercely loyal staff loathe to give up what control it helped. And so, as turnover churned across conglomerate houses, Norton's workers stayed forever" (169-170).

"If Polly Norton hadn't given the company to its employees in 1945, tehn, decades later, these writers might never have made it, suggesting what exceeds conglomerate taste, what was nearly lost when the practices of the conglomerate era locked into place, and what works of fiction might have come into the world but didn't because they exceeded Norton's vision, too" (170).