Drawing on data sets and applying the theoretical tools of both sociology and economics, this book examines the substantive issues, challenges, and problems confronting the diverse and in many ways fragile book publishing industry in the United States, and presents the social and economic analysis of its state and future trends.

"Publishing has always played a substantive role in the dissemination of information. Thanks to The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century, we finally have a valuable introduction to the U.S. book publishing industry in our contemporary times. Greco has a reputation for raising tough questions and then carefully analyzing an enormous amount of data to clearly answer those questions. This book will not disappoint; it's an impressive achievement, and even with my 30 years in the industry, I learned a great deal."--Tom Radko, Editor, Journal of Scholarly Publishing
"This book is a great resource for anyone trying to understand how the book industry works."--Jim Milliot, Director of Business and News, Publishers Weekly