A Publisher's Confession

by Unknown

And three or four or five men, by a little discussion, can reach a clearer and saner judgment about a book from the reports of three or four readers than the readers themselves can reach or than any one man or any two men who consider the reports could reach. There is no subject in the world about which a conference is likely to be more helpful. One man’s judgment about the publishing quality of a book may easily be wrong. The judgment of two men may be wrong if they look at it from the same angle or with the same temperament. But the judgment of three, or four, or five men, if they have the facts before them and if they indulge in frank discussion, is very seldom wrong. No book on which serious work has been done ought to be rejected or accepted without the benefit of the independent reports of two or three sensible persons who have carefully read it, and without the discussions of these reports by three or four other persons of experience and judgment. And in at least three American publishing houses every manuscript of any value or promise runs a course of hopeful consideration such as this; for the publisher wants good new books, he wants good new writers; and he wants them badly. Half a dozen popular writers will build a publishing house. It is, therefore, doubtful whether any other business is so carefully conducted with reference to its sources of supply.

In fact, all publishers make many more mistakes in accepting books than in declining them. They accept many books from new writers that they hope may possibly succeed, but in which they have not very strong faith. It is the book manuscripts of this class that cause the most work and the greatest trouble—the class that may possibly succeed. A book of this class by a new writer who shows cleverness or some other good quality is often accepted in the hope that the author may do better with the next book. It is accepted as an encouragement and as a hope; it chiefly is for this reason that so many books are published that are barely good enough to warrant publication. The publisher is trying to “develop” an author.

Sometimes this method succeeds; for it sometimes happens that a good writer writes a first book that is merely a promise of later achievement. But this does not often happen. In most cases the second book is no better than the first—or is worse. Then the publisher loses and the writer is seldom heard of again. The number of one-novel writers scattered over the land would surprise the world if it were known. There is no rule about literary production to which there are not an embarrassing number of exceptions. But in most cases a successful writer starts with a successful book. The hope that the second book will be better is one of the rocks on which many publishing ventures wreck.

But if the publishers put forth a number of commonplace books (chiefly novels) from a false hope that they may thus develop good writers, they also do a service of the opposite kind. They save the long-suffering public from many worthless books. For if the public had thrust upon it all or half or a tenth of the books that are written, what a dull world we should have!

When a book-manuscript has been rejected, the delicate task comes next of informing the author. This task is seldom done as well as it ought to be. It is almost impossible for a publisher—who receives and rejects manuscripts as a matter of business—to put himself in the place of a writer who has spent lonely weeks in her work. To send a mere business note is almost an insult. Yet what more can the publisher write? He does not dare write hopefully. If he does he will give a degree of encouragement that is dishonest. Yet the author expects a long and explicit letter telling why the manuscript is unavailable. If she does not receive such a letter she jumps to the conclusion that her manuscript has not had fair consideration. Publishers’ letters of rejection are the chief cause, I suspect, of the persistent notion that they are careless in the examination of manuscripts.

Every letter of declination ought to be written by a skilful man—a diplomatist who can write an unpleasant truth without offence. Every such letter ought to be written with a pen. No general form ought to be used. Yet in only one of the publishing houses whose habits I know is this degree of care taken. The consideration of manuscript from strangers is careful and conscientious, but letters of rejection are often perfunctory.

To sell a novel that has the mysterious quality of popularity in it is not difficult. Properly launched, it sells itself. To sell a novel that lacks the inherent quality of popularity—that is almost impossible. Apparently it has sometimes been done, but nobody can be sure whether the result after all was due to the book or to the salesman. Every publisher has proved, over and over again, to his disgust, that he cannot make the people buy a novel that they do not want; and when a novel appears (no better novel) that they do want, the novel-readers find it out by some free-masonry and would buy it if the publishers tried to prevent them.

Nobody has discovered a rule—to say nothing of a principle—whereby the popularity of a novel by a new writer may be determined. If it be a really great, strong book, of course it is easy to understand that it will sell; but whether it will sell 10,000 copies or 100,000 nobody knows. If it be a slapdash dime-novel, full of action, it is easy to guess that it will sell; but whether 5,000 or 500,000 nobody knows. Sometimes a book of the sheerest commonplace happens to hit the public mood at the happy angle and sells beyond all expectation. The truth is, every new novel by an unknown writer presents a problem peculiar to itself; and in advertising it and offering it for sale, every book’s peculiar problem must be studied by itself.

The whole question is a subtle social one. Who could have foretold popularity for “pigs in clover,” rather than for some other silly puzzle; or for ping-pong; or for women’s hats of a certain grotesque construction? The popular whim about novels is like the whims for these things. And a popular novel passes as quickly as any other fashion. The story has been many times told of the sudden falling off of the demand for “Trilby”—so sudden that the publishers had a large number of copies left on hand which could not be sold at all except as waste paper. Every publisher is afraid to publish very large editions of any very popular novel; for they have all had an experience parallel to this experience with “Trilby.”

But other kinds of books are less capricious than novels; and the business of the publisher has been reduced more nearly to a science in dealing with books of information. Several publishers, for example, have series of little books made of selections from English and American classics. Many of them have sold well; but some of them have sold by the million and others just as good and just as attractive have stopped at the ten-thousand limit or at a lower limit. The difference is with the skill with which they were put on the market. Sometimes an ingenious “scheme” will sell information books in great numbers; and it often happens that the worst of three or four books on the same subject and published for the same price, becomes far better known than the other better books.