In less than a decade, McSweeney's has gone from an idiosyncratic literary magazine to a new-look publishing empire. Now, it's the American literary scene’s most astute soothsayer.

What really sets Eggers’s empire apart, though, is that it possesses that most elusive and valued of modern attributes: a brand.

The ideal McSweeney’s reader (or writer) lives in Brooklyn, wears interesting T-shirts, has a blog he works on in coffee shops, and knows it’s cool to oppose globalisation but uncool to go on too much about it.

McSweeney’s also strives to be socially relevant. It wants to make the world a better place – or at least more like the cooler parts of Brooklyn.