Have the Big Five publishers actually killed literary fiction?
Big Five authors, publicists and agents weigh in.
Hello and welcome to the almost-weekend. My only plans include waiting for the slightly warmer weather to hit the east coast so that my Olympic ice rink of a driveway will stop being a death threat.
Thank you to everyone who wrote in with their own ghost encounters after I shared the story of the straw-hatted phantom who plagued me while I was in San Miguel last week. There might be a part two to that story, because I’m speaking to a medium today, so we’ll see what happens.
For the moment, though, let’s flashback to December of 2024 when two writers published a commercial-publishing-takedown via
’s “Persuasion” Substack. That article, The Big Five Publishers Have Killed Literary Fiction, was re-shared widely and debated in numerous reaction pieces and Notes.If you’ve ever taken a nonfiction or memoir-writing class with me, you’ll know that I counsel people to write angry, revise angry, but to never publish angry. This was my beef with Prince Harry’s memoir SPARE and that remains my beef with the rushed and bitter essay put out by Elizabeth Kaye Cook and Melanie Jennings that I linked to above. Not only did Cook and Jennings write angry (their opinion is—I’m paraphrasing—that the Big Five is universally made up of money-hungry sellouts who will only acquire the literary equivalent of Starbucks cake pops going forward) but they also published angry. I don’t know whom they have advising them, but when you are actively looking to get a book deal (they are—they include this in their bios), publishing a rabid takedown of major US publishers will not help their cause.
After the piece came out, a writer friend texted to ask whether their essay was based on hurt feelings or facts. After doing a deep dive into the essay and its authors’ publishing track records, I’m afraid it is the former. The authors haven’t published a book with either the Big Five or anyone else, and while that’s understandable (it is super duper hard to get a book deal in this current market), I personally wouldn’t pen a takedown of what it’s like to be a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant if, you know, I’d never actually worked in a Michelin-starred restaurant as an actual chef? We write from what we know. We should publish that way, too.
If you’ve read Before and After the Book Deal, you’ll know that I’m big on sharing diverse opinions when it comes to publishing, and also, that I’m not a writer who does “hot takes” overnight. So when AWP’s literary magazine Writers Chronicle got in touch to ask if I’d write a response piece to the polemic essay, I was delighted to have two months to let my thoughts ferment and stew. (I guess you can only do one or the other, either ferment, or stew, but I’m tired and it’s lunchtime so please allow it.)
I’m super proud of the piece I wrote and I’m grateful for fellow writers, agents and publicists
and also some of the men who sent me grumbling comments on Facebook for weighing in. The Writers Chronicle has made my essay their free read for February, but here’s an excerpt:Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was touring the hallowed halls of a Big Five publisher where I had a novel under contract. Top brass led me to a new release table in the lounge, where I admired the authors I’d be joining at the imprint. One of the executives, whom I’m going to call Randall, picked up a title by a brand-name author whose detective novels always hit the bestseller list. “This is the fellow who’ll be sending you on book tour,” he said, pointing to the name embossed in gold.
I’m going on book tour?! was all I could think in response to Randall’s joke. I was giddy on that visit, navel-gazey: It had been my life’s dream to publish a book with a Big Five publisher. But on the train ride home to Massachusetts, I sat with Randall’s comment, considered what he meant. For a long time—until I got a book deal, to be honest—I’d spent a lot of energy being envious of Big Five authors, especially the household names, the ones who hit the list. But Randall’s offhand comment changed that. He helped me understand that far from being jealous of my best-selling brethren, I should thank my lucky stars for them. The proceeds from their blockbusters helped Big Five publishers take on literary newbies like me. From that day on, I was a writer changed, evolved, convinced that literary fiction and commercial fiction could live in harmony. I’ve been operating from that assumption for well over ten years, with five books to my name, some at Big Fives, some at indies, all positive experiences. Imagine my surprise when a viral Substack article declared that the Big Five publishers I’ve enjoyed collaborating with are out to murder me.
“The Big Five Publishers Have Killed Literary Fiction,” announced an essay in Yascha Mounk’s Substack Persuasion, coauthored by Elizabeth Kaye Cook and Melanie Jennings, who, according to their bios, are working on a book together. In Cook and Jennings’s opinion, the halcyon days when “publishers needed to nurture, court, outbid, and out-promise each other in landing both emerging and established writers” has given way to “monopsonists” who dash with Black Friday–level fervor at the “safe money” of “‘auto-buy’ readerships and genre hits.” For an industry notoriously awful at trend forecasting, that is quite a claim.
I kept pausing in my reading to compare my publishing experiences to the maledictions presented by these writers who—unless I have this wrong—have not yet published with a Big Five imprint. I can’t count the friends whose high-concept literary fiction has engendered feverish commercial auctions, the glasses I’ve clinked when their Big Five novels went to print. Were these happy memories but a fever dream? Had my friends and colleagues signed not a book deal, but a death wish with a contract killer? Was I living in a hole of naivety and optimism by thinking well of the Big Five?
For the rest of my thoughts, complaints, and digs, you can read the entire article here. (I think it remains free for a few weeks, then goes behind a Paywall.)
Thanks again to the folks who let me use their words in print, and for James Tate Hill for asking me to write this. And to the Big Fivers, for publishing me!
Free talk today about getting your book-length manuscripts ready for the query circuit! It’s at 12pm PT (that’s 3pm for east coasters) today, Friday Feb 21st. You can sign up here. I’m not sure whether video will be released after the fact or not but you can certainly ask the good folks at the Black Mountain Institute.
Other things besides hauntings happened to me while I was in San Miguel de Allende last week teaching at the SMA Writers Conference. I taught memoir, publishing and newsletter writing and I LOVED my students. I want to introduce you to my students who are actively working on their Substacks. You all know how hard it is to build an audience, so if you can throw these writers a Follow and a Subscribe, please do.
has a memoir out now with She Writes Press called “Sit, Cinderella, Sit” that just appeared as Book of the Week in People Magazine! Lisa has a riotous Substack called “One Minute Thoughts from a Pink Head.” (Lisa has pink hair.)
Georgine Hodgkinson is working on a memoir about being an empty nester who got involved in the Puerto Rican cryptocurrency scene. Georgine has a Substack called LifeTalk where she explores the beauty and complexity of interpersonal relationships.
Casey O’Connell lives in Fort Collins, CO where she is writing a memoir about hiking the Camino de Santiago solo after experiencing burnout as a teacher. Her Substack is Casey O’Connell.
Aysu Tazebay is a Turkish American based in Orange County, CA where she’s writing a book about being an immigrant mother with an autistic child, exploring themes of otherness and identity. Her Substack, “Finding Joy in a Whirlwind of Existence” is published under her pen name, Aysu Selin.
It was a privilege to meet these writers while I was in Mexico. I hope you get to meet them too through their newsletters and their writing. May they all get awesome book deals!
Anybody need a web designer? I’m old school in a lot of ways, so I just love an author website. If you, too, feel it’s time for a personal website, consider letting graphic designer Emily Homonoff make you one. Emily is the founder and primary designer behind Little Lion Creative. She has been building functional and engaging sites for authors, entrepreneurs, and businesses for close to a decade. Prior to that, she worked in book publishing as a publicist, which informs the work she does today. Some examples of her author websites include:
Emily has created a discount code for web design just for my subscribers. Here are the deets1:
If you have an author website, post it in the comments so that we can see what we’re all up to!
I have to get ready for my Black Mountain Institute talk, but in the meantime, if you’d like to read the rest of my not-hot-but-measured take on the “Big Five” debacle, you can read it here.
See you all next week,
Courtney
Please note, Emily’s post is a paid advertisement. Going forward, infrequently and with very little predictability, I’ll be accepting paid advertisements from people who match my value set and offer services I find beneficial to our creative community because, you know, we are living through the fall of democracy and eggs are $12 and I need to bury some gold coins in a cave to support my family.
Fabulous article! So glad it wasn’t behind a paywall. Thank you for doing the research and writing this. I’d come across the headline of the original post and hadn’t bothered reading it because it’s obvious to me that the Big Five aren’t killing literary fiction, and I assumed the title was click bait tbh. (Btw, I’ve read your point before about commercial authors, in effect, supporting literary authors and have internalized it. It’s both such a sensible and reassuring way of looking at the situation. I’ve shared it with other writers, and it always resonates.)
Thanks for writing this. In my MFA program I heard a lot of similar sentiments regarding the Big 5 that were also expressed in the essay you wrote in response to. I often heard others say that if you want to publish with them you will have to sell out and diminish your work basically. As a marketing professional for my day job however, I saw it quite differently and suspected there was some envy or insecurity rooted in those comments. I think because the process of writing is so solitary it makes the competitive aspect of it more heightened too at times.