This article presents the results of a socio-economic research project that focuses on French‐speaking Belgian publishing houses founded between 2005 and 2015. Thirty loosely‐structured interviews were conducted with publishers and representatives of professional organizations and public institutions. The objective is to analyze the situation of emerging publishers, and to understand their editorial procedures, their operating styles, and their modes of production and marketing organization within the context of a pronounced polarization of the Belgian book sector. While the study emphasizes the importance of features specific to small publishing houses (specialized positioning, simple structural models supported by limited means, economic fragility, etc.), it also makes it possible to characterize the conditions under which more industrial forms of publishing appear. From this perspective, we show how, in a context of global interpenetration of French‐language book markets, emerging publishers in Belgium are torn between local based strategies and international development.