Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature, Dan Sinykin. Columbia University Press, 2023. Softcover, $30.00. 9780231192958

Abstract

Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature brings fresh analysis to fiction publishing in the United States. As an English professor with an appointment in quantitative theory and methods, as well as co-founder of a collective focused on post-1945 literary and cultural data, the author Dan Sinykin is uniquely positioned to produce this ambitious work of literary history. Big Fiction centers on conglomeration—the corporate trend of acquiring companies across industries—and the impact this business practice has had on fiction publishing in the United States from the 1960s to present. In a seemingly flurry of consolidations and take-overs within a short amount of time, the publishing industry transformed from being relatively small, privately held businesses to those same small publishers being gobbled up by large corporations in spite of antitrust laws (p. 5).