A Publisher's Confession

by Unknown

But there are others—others who keep “literary drummers,” men who go to see popular writers and solicit books. The authors of very popular books themselves also—some of them at least—put themselves up at auction, going from publisher to publisher or threatening to go. This is demoralization and commercialization with a vengeance. But it is the sin of the authors.

As a rule, this method has not succeeded; or it has not succeeded long. There are two men in the United States who have gone about making commercial calls on practically every man and woman who has ever written a successful book; and they are not well thought of by most of the writers whom they see. Every other publisher hears of their journeyings and of their “drumming.” Sometimes they have secured immediate commercial results, but as a rule they have lost more than they have gained. The permanent success of every publishing house is built on the confidence and the esteem of those who write books. When a house forfeits that, it begins to lose. Its very foundations begin to become insecure.

Commercial as this generation of writers may be, almost every writer of books has an ambition to win literary esteem. They want dignity. They seek reputation on as high a level as possible. “The trouble with the whole business” (I quote from a letter from a successful novelist) “is that novel-writing has become so very common. ‘Common’ is the word. It is no longer distinguished. What I want is distinction. Money I must have—some money at least; but I want also to be distinguished.” That is a frank confession that almost every writer makes sooner or later.

Now, when a publishing house forfeits distinction it, too, becomes common, and loses its chance to confer a certain degree of distinction. And literary “drummers” have this effect—authors who can confer distinction shun their houses. The literary solicitor, therefore, can work only on a low level; and the houses that use him are in danger of sinking to a low level.

The truth is, it is a personal service that the publisher does for the author, almost as personal a service as the physician does for his patient or the lawyer for his client. It is not merely a commercial service. Every great publisher knows this and almost all successful authors find it out, if they do not know it at first.

The ideal relation between publisher and author requires this personal service. It even requires enthusiastic service. “Do you thoroughly believe in this book? and do you believe in me?” these are the very proper questions that every earnest writer consciously or unconsciously puts to his publisher. Even the man who writes the advertisements of books must believe in them. Else his advertisements will not ring true. The salesmen must believe what they say. The booksellers and the public will soon discover whether they believe it. They catch the note of sincerity—the public is won; the author succeeds. Or they catch the note of insincerity and the book lags.

This is the whole story of good publishing. Good books to begin with, then a personal sincerity on the part of the publisher. And there is no lasting substitute for these things.

The essential weakness in most of even the best publishing houses of our day is the lack of personal literary help to authors by the owners of the publishing houses themselves. Almost every writer wishes to consult somebody. If they do not wish advice, they at least wish sympathy. Every book is talked over with somebody. Now, when a publishing house has a head—an owner—who will read every important manuscript, and freely and frankly talk or write about it, and can give sympathetic suggestions, that is the sort of publishing house that will win and hold the confidence of the best writers. From one point of view the publisher is a manufacturer and salesman. From another point of view he is the personal friend and sympathetic adviser of authors—a man who has a knowledge of literature and whose judgment is worth having. A publisher who lacks the ability to do this high and intimate service may indeed succeed for a time as a mere manufacturer and seller of books; but he can add little to the best literary impulses or tendencies of his time; nor is he likely to attract the best writers.

And—in all the noisy rattle of commercialism—the writers of our own generation who are worth most on a publisher’s list respond to the true publishing personality as readily as writers did before the day of commercial methods. All the changes that have come in the profession, therefore, have not after all changed its real character as it is practised on its higher levels. And this rule will hold true—that no publishing house can win and keep a place on the highest level that does not have at least one man who possesses this true publishing personality.

There is much less reason to fear the commercial degradation of many other callings than the publishers’.