"Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature" by Dan Sinykin

The publishing industry has undergone change since 1960, notes Dan Sinykin, the Emory University English professor whose new book is "Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature."If you're familiar with names like Ballantine, Bantam, Berkley, Dell, Doubleday, Knopf, Putnam and Viking, these once-independent publishing houses are among the companies in the stable of  Penguin Random House, now the largest book publisher in the world.Sinykin told Steve Tarter that the consolidation that's occurred in the publishing world has meant that editors now pore over profit-and-loss statements where they once courted writers. That's left to literary agents these days.Sinykin said changes in the publishing industry have affected fiction, its literary form, and what it means to be an author. Thankfully, the rise of the conglomerates has also spurred on nonprofits such as Graywolf Press and Coffee House Press that seek to protect literature from market pressures. Sinykin also singled out employee-owned W. W. Norton, the lone big house of the six large publishers that remains independent and provides a market for "misfit fiction.". It's a subject that's largely escaped scrutiny, said Sinykin, quoting Marc McGurl, author of "The Program Era," who noted that the publishing industry "has grown so large and internally complex that few scholars attempt anytime to gather its splinters."But Sinykin has gathered a number of those splinters, adding that there's the traditional publishing industry led by the mighty conglomerates along with the growing world of internet publishing where Tik Tok now creates some of the biggest best sellers on the market. said Sinykin.The ubiquitous AI looms as a change agent in the future for the publishing world, he said, suggesting that the impact will become clearer once law suits are settled.