As a theoretical proposition it seems plain that the publisher who will spend the most money in newspaper advertising will sell the most books. Authors not infrequently take up this notion. Sometimes it is true; for sometimes newspaper advertising will cause a great demand for a book. But this is not true with every book. And most recent publishing failures have been due—in a great measure, at least—to prodigal advertising—or, perhaps, to misdirected advertising.
Every book is a problem unto itself. The wise publisher so regards it from the beginning; and he makes his plans for every book to suit its peculiar case and not another. All the long road from author to reader, the book—any book—presents a series of interesting, original problems. Many of them are very fascinating problems. They call for imagination, fertility, ingenuity. The reason why few authors or authors’ societies or other persons who have not been definitely trained to publishing fail, is that they are too likely to regard publishing as a mere routine business—a business of manufacturing a certain product and then of offering it for sale. They forget that every book—and even every edition of every book—presents a problem that was never presented before since the world was made. And when its sympathetic ingenuity and inventiveness fail, a publishing house begins to become a mere business and the drying-up period is not far off.
But no publishing house fails because it does not examine manuscripts carefully. There is no other business that I know of that is done more seriously; and the mistakes made are fewer than the public thinks. They are mistakes of judgment and not of carelessness.
CHAPTER VI
THE PRINTER WHO ISSUES BOOKS AT THE AUTHOR’S EXPENSE
A Heartless Pirate Who Preys Upon the Unsophisticated and Ambitious Writer—The Contract in Which This Sort of “Publisher” Cannot Lose—The Inevitable Disappointment—How the Publication by Even a Responsible House of a Book That Sells Poorly Injures the House.
An innocent and ambitious good woman sent to me last year a form of contract that a printer who pretended to be a publisher had sent her to sign for the publication of a novel. In its unessential clauses it was like the usual publisher’s contract; but it required the author to pay in advance a fixed sum for the plates and for the manufacture of one thousand copies; and this sum was just about twice what they should cost him. Then he was to pay her not the usual ten or even fifteen per cent. royalty, but fifty per cent. on all copies sold—as well he might; and, if at the end of a year the book had ceased to sell, she was bound to buy the plates from him at half cost. The meaning of all this translated into figures, is this: The plates would cost him $250, for he does cheap work; a thousand copies of the book would cost him $200, for he makes cheap books; total, $450. She would pay him in advance $900. He has a profit so far of $450. He does not expect to sell any of the books. Her friends would buy perhaps as many as two hundred copies. They would not be on sale at the bookstores—except in her own town. At the end of the year she would pay him again for the plates half what he charged her at first—which is just what they cost him. By this time she would have paid just three times their cost to him. His outlay in the whole transaction would be:
| For plates | $250 | |
| For 1000 copies | 200 | |
| —— | $450 | |
| His income would be: Her prepayment | 900 | |
| Her purchase of the plates a year later | 250 | |
| —— | ||
| —— | 1150 | |
| His profit | $700 |
He would not have even to make any outlay of capital. She supplies the capital and he makes his $700 profit by writing her a few letters. If any of the books were sold he would receive also half what they brought. She would have spent $1150, less what she received for the few copies that were sold. Her book would not have been published—only printed at an excessive cost.