The five largest publishing conglomerates that dominate the traditional book industry: Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan.
The Big Five are the five major corporate publishing groups that control the majority of the traditional book market. Each one is actually a collection of imprints, which are smaller publishing brands with their own editorial identities. Penguin Random House is the largest by a significant margin, followed by HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. Together they publish thousands of titles per year, dominate bookstore shelf space, and shape bestseller lists. Getting published by a Big Five imprint almost always requires a literary agent.
The Big Five still set the pace for the publishing industry. They have the distribution networks to get your book into every major bookstore, the marketing budgets to create bestsellers, and the prestige that opens doors to reviews, awards, and media coverage. But they're also corporations driven by profit projections, which means they tend to be risk-averse. Understanding who they are and how they work helps you decide whether pursuing a Big Five deal is the right goal for your specific book and career.
Published by Bloomsbury, which isn't technically Big Five, but Maas's Crescent City series is with Hachette. Her career shows how Big Five marketing muscle can turn a popular author into a cultural phenomenon.
Published by Ballantine Books (Penguin Random House). After self-publishing The Martian, Weir's move to a Big Five publisher gave him the distribution and film deal infrastructure that self-publishing couldn't match at that scale.
Published by Harper (HarperCollins). Won the Pulitzer Prize. Big Five publishers have the review copy distribution and bookstore placement that give literary novels their best chance at major awards.
Published by Entangled/Red Tower (distributed by Macmillan). Became a massive bestseller through the combination of BookTok buzz and Big Five distribution reach.
Pick two Big Five publishers and explore their websites. Find three imprints from each that publish in your genre. For each imprint, identify one recent book they published and one editor who acquires in your category. This gives you a concrete map of where your manuscript might land if you pursue traditional publishing.