A Publisher's Confession

by Unknown

There are several “publishers” who seem to do a prosperous brief business of this kind by preying upon inexperienced and disappointed authors. It is only by accident they ever get a book that sells; and they hardly pretend to put books on the market, for of course the booksellers will not buy them. A really good book would, therefore, in their hands be buried. The public would never find it out. They print a large number of the novels that the real publishers decline.

The long list of books—chiefly novels—that these pseudo-publishers put out tells a sad tale of misdirected energy and of disappointed hopes. A man—oftener it is a woman—conceives the notion of writing a novel. She works alone. She shuts herself off from life about her. Any human being who spends months at a self-imposed secret task becomes profoundly, even abnormally interested in it. The story grows—or flows; for the author becomes more fluent as she goes on. She is likely to accept all the stories of extraordinary successes that she reads in the literary journals as if they were common successes. She goes on working by herself with no corrective companionship. At last she sends it to a real publisher and gets a disappointing decision. She imagines a thousand reasons why she is not appreciated. She sends it to another, and so on. The story of the wanderings of “David Harum” in manuscript has given courage to thousands of worthless novels—a courage to travel to the last ditch, and the last ditch is the pseudo-publisher. “Yes,” he writes, “it is an unusual story;” and he will be greatly honored to publish it, and sends one of his remarkable contracts.

To get the book published by anybody will bring her recognition, she thinks. The public will be kinder than the publishers. She takes the risk—sometimes goes into debt to do so. That is the end of the book, and in most cases the end of the author’s career. The work begun in loneliness has ended in oblivion—wasted days, wasted dollars, wasted hopes.

Yet what is an author to do who believes in his own work when it is refused by the regular publisher? Publish it himself or let it remain in manuscript. Never permit it to be brought out by a publisher to whom any suspicion attaches.

There is not much danger (I do not believe there is any danger) that a manuscript of any value whatever will under present conditions fail to find a legitimate purchaser. But one way out of the difficulty that authors often seek is to propose to a legitimate publisher to publish his book at the writer’s expense; and it is not apparent to the layman why the publisher cannot afford to make such arrangements. “If the author pays the bill,” he says, “the publisher will surely lose nothing.” But the publisher does lose, and loses heavily, every time he publishes a book that is not successful in the market. A publisher cannot afford to accept a book that will not itself earn a profit. If the author pay all the cost and a good profit besides, even this does not change the case; for unsalable books clog the market and stop the wheels of the publisher’s whole trade. He soon begins to lose influence and standing in the book trade. The jobbers buy new books from him in smaller quantities. The booksellers become suspicious of his judgment.

Last year, to give a true instance, a publisher put out four new novels by four new writers. His salesmen and his advertising man announced them as good books. They made enthusiastic estimates of them. The book dealers ordered liberally. Three out of the four failed to make any appreciable success. The dealers had many copies of them left on hand. This year, when the same publisher brought out two more new novels by two more new writers, his salesmen met with incredulity and indifference. The booksellers said to them with a sad smile, “We’ll swap copies of your last year’s novels for these.”

Now it so happens that both of these new books of this year are good and popular. A demand for them was made as soon as the reviews appeared and people began to read them. But the booksellers were ill supplied. They would order only a few copies at a time—or none. Thus the good books of this year suffered because the publisher’s dull books of last year failed to bring profit or satisfaction to anybody. They stood in the way of this year’s better books.

While, therefore, no legitimate publisher wishes to reduce his business to a mere commercial basis, and while he is eager to maintain the dignity of his profession—must maintain it in fact—and do as high service as possible to the literary production of his time; yet he cannot load down his list with many books that have not a good commercial reason for existence.

The plausible proposition which is so often made in these days of universal authorship—to publish books at the author’s expense—is for these reasons not a sound proposition. If the book succeeds there is no reason why the author should make the investment. If it fail, the publisher loses, even though the author settle the bill; and he loses heavily.

A writer who asks a publisher to bring out a book that has no commercial reason for existence is asking him to imitate the “fake” publisher. The “fake” publisher could not make a living (since he has no character and cannot sell books) except by cash payments from his authors. As soon as the publisher begins to receive cash payments from his authors (be the basis ever so legitimate) he begins to clog up the outlets for his product. He has taken the first step towards “fake” publishing.