Getting a book published is hard. Starry-eyed first-time authors dream of being published by one of the Big Five: Penguin Random House, Simon & Shuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan. A worthy goal, but in many cases, unrealistic. Recently the Big Five tried to become the Big Four when Random House proposed buying Simon & Shuster. The Justice Department said no. When large companies combine they put forth the verbiage about economies of scale, how it will help consumers, competition and so on. Think about the airline mergers and those of cell phone providers. What has your result been? According to Richard Howort, in a New York Times essay from August, 2022…