On the Rise and Fall of Publishing’s “Make Book”

In this optimization-obsessed age, it can feel downright subversive to say that gut feelings are more valuable than statistics. But the process of making art was never a numbers game. It’s the unquantifiable qualities that make the great books great: you know them when you see them. Commerce, of course, is different.

Such discord illustrates the book industry’s debut novel conundrum. You’re asking a publisher to take a chance on a writer with no track record at a time when social media numbers mean almost nothing. Maybe if the author is well-connected their work will come with a few fancy blurbs from other writers vouching for this new talent, but beyond that there’s not much else to go on except the work. All you’ve got is the hope of introducing a new writer to the world and hoping readers will like the way that writer arranges the words on a page.

Back when I was an assistant at Simon & Schuster in the early aughts I was introduced to the concept of the “make book,” a particular book that an editor or publisher felt extra passionate about and wanted to try to “make” a success. A make book did not depend on the recognizability of the author’s name or the sellability of their idea; it was all in the execution. The job of the editor was to spread their enthusiasm to sales and marketing and other departments, with the hopes of building momentum for the book that would eventually penetrate the outside world.

The idea of the make book is essentially optimistic: that a publisher, through a coordinated labor of love, could turn a book into a bestseller. The make book requires a number of conditions in order to work: a publisher willing to risk the time and effort of their staff on a book that is not a slam dunk, a wider company ethos that values the making of art, the ability of publishing workers to trust their instincts to determine if a book is special, and, most importantly, a trust in the market to elevate worthy literary material.

The idea of the make book is essentially optimistic: that a publisher, through a coordinated labor of love, could turn a book into a bestseller.

Viet Than Nguyen’s The Sympathizer is a great example of a make book that worked, as is Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. It’s in looking at these authors bodies of work that I add one more requirement for a make book’s success: the belief that the break out of the debut is not the end goal, but rather the beginning of a sustainable career for a new author.

Make books often aren’t successful–the stars still have to align in a particular way to create a hit and even the most dedicated publishers can’t bend the markets to their will. But there are also plenty of flashy million-dollar debuts whose titles I can no longer remember. Remember: the debut that lands a $1 million advance (think Yesteryear) is not a make book, the debut with a 7-figure advance is one that must achieve some success in order not to be a total flop.

What’s still true in 2026 is that debut novels with modest advances just about always count as make books. Debuts need the care and attention of a staff that’s invested in breaking them out simply because publishers believe in the importance of developing new voices.

Corporate consolidation has made the conditions much more difficult for make books to break out. At conglomerate publishers today, employees might get to pick one book across a variety of imprints for the company’s sales and marketing teams to really focus on. These teams are selling hundreds of books per season and there simply isn’t time enough to make deep personal pitches for every book they love (here is where I remind you that for the most part these teams are overwhelmed, not disinterested).

Corporate consolidation has made the conditions much more difficult for make books to break out.

More and more, it falls to smaller presses to take chances on new voices and to nurture them. Which is why last week’s news that Catapult Books would be shutting down at the end of the month is particularly devastating. In its decade of operation, Catapult has helped a lot of prominent writers get their starts. Catapult took chances on writers like Lauren Oyler, Nicole Chung, Chibundu Onuzo, and Chelsea Bieker, who later sold their subsequent books to larger presses.

Before Percival Everett received 7-figures from Random House for James, the indie press Graywolf gave him plenty of room to experiment and grow as a writer. Annie Hartnett, whose latest novel The Road to Tender Hearts is a consistent seller, got her start at Tin House (an indie that was purchased by Zando in 2025). We need healthy small presses with small budgets and big ideas to look out for writers and create a sustainable publishing ecosystem. But the outlook for developing new voices looks a little bit bleaker as another small creative press bites the dust.