This seems closely related to PG's essay Black Swan farming: "there is probably at most one company in each YC batch that will have a significant effect on our

This seems closely related to PG's essay Black Swan farming: "there is probably at most one company in each YC batch that will have a significant effect on our returns, and the rest are just a cost of doing business" It seems that for the publishers as well, rather than betting big on a few predicted winners, they could bet small on a large number of authors with big potential in the best case.