[kalkin]

I'm willing to believe this but the explanation given in the article doesn't make sense to me:

> When Random House was a tiny independent company, it could make a tidy profit by publishing books that sold just ten thousand copies. But when you’re part of a billion dollar corporation, those books don’t move the needle—you need something bigger and splashier.

What? There's no rule that every item sold by a megacorp has to "move the needle." If I order some unscented shampoo from Amazon that doesn't move the needle for Bezos, and neither do all the orders for that particular brand put together.

[dsign]

Yes, but you can't replicate a bottle of unscented shampoo ad-infinitum for basically zero additional cost. With books, print-on-demand and digital particularly, you can. Then it all becomes a huge one-off cost with a huge profit potential.