Survival of the most adaptable

Publishing is an odd animal: perhaps more like a worm than a dinosaur. Chop it in half and both smaller bits will go on their way. Viewed from the street, one publishing house publishing two hundred books a year amounts to pretty much the same thing as two publishing houses publishing a hundred books each. And if the market only needs a hundred and fifty books, then the companies can shrivel up a bit and pretty easily adapt to publishing seventy-five. And just like worms, they can expand again when the rain comes. Those conglomerates are really just a whole lot of small bits smooshed together. Obviously fitness for purpose does also affect survival. If the hundred books you are publishing are ditch-water dull, no one will much regret your shriveling up permanently. We can only publish what our authors write, and attracting authors is another key to Darwinian fitness. Publishing only books by Dull Ness, Bo Ring, and Un Ree Dibble presents an extinction risk. Other than that it’s as…