A Publisher's Confession

by Unknown

And this is why a great publishing trust, or “merger” is impossible. The successful publisher sustains a relation to the successful author that is not easily transferable. It is a personal relation. A great corporation cannot take a real publisher’s place in his attitude to the authors he serves.

This is the reason, too, why the “authors’ agents” seldom succeed in raising the hopes of unsuccessful writers. As soon as a writer and a publisher have come into a personal relation that is naturally profitable and pleasant, a “go-between” has no place. There is no legitimate function for him.

Writers are as constant in their relations as other men and women. As they acquire experience, they become more constant. Every one for himself works his way to this conclusion—once having an appreciative and successful publisher, it is better to hold to him. And the strong friendships that grow out of this relation are among the most precious gains to each.

One publisher said to another the other day: “I see by your announcements that one of my authors has gone to you—you are welcome.”

“Yes,” was the reply, “I have in almost every instance made a mistake when I have taken in a dissatisfied writer—one cannot make lasting friends with them.”

Every great publishing house has been built on the strong friendships between writers and publishers. There is, in fact, no other sound basis to build on; for the publisher cannot do his highest duty to any author whose work he does not appreciate, and with whom he is not in sympathy. Now, when a man has an appreciation of your work and sympathy for it, he wins you. This is the simplest of all psychological laws—the simplest of all laws of friendship and one of the soundest.

Those who know the personal history of the publishing houses that in recent years have failed or met embarrassments know that, in most cases, one cause of decline was the drawing apart of publishers and authors. When authors begin to regard their publishers as mere business agents, and publishers to regard authors as mere “literary men” with whom they have only business relations, the beginning of a decline has come.

I recall as one of the pleasantest days of my life the day on which I accepted a book by an author I had never before seen. So pleasant was our correspondence that I took the first occasion I could to go nearly a thousand miles to see him. In his own house we talked about his literary plans, and I spent a day always to be remembered. Our friendship began then. Of course I was interested in his work—you cannot long feign an interest that you do not feel. This friendship has lasted now long enough to make it very much more secure a bond than any merely commercial service could have become.

Every publisher’s experience is the same—if he be a real publisher and will long remain a real publisher. Else he would be only a printer and a salesman, and mere printers and salesmen have not often built publishing houses. For publishing houses have this distinction over most other commercial institutions—they rest on the friendship of the most interesting persons in the world, the writers of good books.

The more formal cultivation of friendly relations such as the famous dinners that some publishers used regularly to give to writers has gone out of fashion. There are yet a few set dinners in the routine of several American publishing houses. But every true publisher knows the authors of his books—knows them as his friends; and the tradition of irritability is false. It is usually the unsuccessful who are irritable, whether they be authors or not.