Except that none of this is true: small presses are growing as fast as the large houses are conglomerating. Amazon and the internet generally have become our generation's book clubs. Publishing houses publish more books, and a wider list of books than ever before. Unfortunately, there are also more people trying to get published.

While the Bestsellers (a genre label, not a numbers description) cost money, if the publishers make money they can puiblish scarier authors. A friend of mine once asked me not to diss Terry Brooks, because publishing Terry Brooks paid for almost his entire sf list.