2. As an Asimov fan, I’m well aware that small publishers have had (and have) problems too (the first publisher of the Foundation trilogy was apparently allergic to paying royalties), but simply having more voices and less of a conglomerate feel strikes me as generally good. I’d like to think smaller publishers might actually publish books; the Big Six (mostly) strike me as Pushing Product. There’s a difference.

Still mulling over whether smaller publishers are de facto better than the Big Six. They *may* be able to push editorial selection and guidance as a differentiator, but whether they’re more able to do this than conglomerates I don’t know. I’ve certainly seen horror stories of authors waiting years for payments from smaller publishers, but again not sure if this is a function of size or not.