Lest I seem to “boast rather than to confess,” I come back to the starting-point, which was this—that the publishers’ calling is not a very profitable one; not a profitable one at all except in fair weather and with a good skipper.
The truth is, publishing is too important a profession and our publishing houses are too important as institutions to be at the mercy of present conditions. The making of schoolbooks and the vending of standard old books in sets, which are useful vocations, but are not publishing proper, are now done best by firms and companies that do nothing else. Hence publishing proper—the bringing out of new books—must find a safer basis than the present conventional profit. It will find this safer basis in two ways.
The first and obvious way is to secure books that have an enormous popularity. This is the effort of nearly all the publishing houses to-day. If a novel reach an edition of 100,000 copies, there is a good profit in it as matters now stand. And a novel, or other book, that will be bought by 100,000 persons ought not to be sold for more than such books now fetch. But there are not enough such books to go around; and the least worthy publishing house is as likely to secure them as the most worthy. A permanent institution, therefore, cannot be built on these or on the hope of them. They are the accidents of the calling.
The other way to maintain a worthy publishing institution is to publish worthy books, to manufacture them well, to do every piece of work that is done on them or that is done for them in the most conscientious way—to keep bookmaking as a fine art, to keep bookselling a dignified profession, to keep the selection of books to publish on the high level of scholarly judgment. This done, a publisher may set his prices higher—must set his prices higher, for he does a higher and more costly service to society. Excellent and worthy of all praise as is some of the publishing work of this sort that is now done, a beginning has hardly yet been made. There is a demand, or a dormant demand can be awakened, for books that have merit (I mean new books as well as old) of better manufacture than we now often see. They must be sold for higher prices, of course.
This is the same as to say that just as a three-dollar shoe is made for most feet that tread this weary continent, but a five-dollar shoe is made for an increasing number of feet that prefer ease to economy, so we are becoming rich enough and wise enough to pay two dollars, or three dollars, or five dollars for a good new book that shall have large and beautiful type, good paper, good margins, good binding—shall be a work of art in its manufacture as well as in the quality of its contents. The public gets its good books too cheap; and the reason is plain.
It was only the other day that the publishers discovered the possibility of securing book after book that would run into large editions. A novel-reading democracy—a public-school democracy—is a new thing. It is an impressive thing. It made new and big markets, and we all rushed after it. Cheapness and great editions became the rage. Writers wrote for the million; publishers published for the million. Cheap books became the fashion. All very well—this widespread effort, this universal reading. But it has not radically changed human nature nor even the permanent foundations of the profession of publishing. We shall come back to higher and better work—some of us will, at least.
Bring the subject home to yourself. What do you want for your book money? Not the latest “big seller.” You may buy that to entertain you on a railway journey. But if you bring it home at all, you send it away at Christmas to some country library. What you want in your own library for your book-money are good books, made at least as well as the furniture in the room; and you want the new books of permanent value. You are sometimes disgusted when you look over the publishers’ catalogues to find so few books of this kind.
Your publishers, too, are becoming weary of having such catalogues; and as soon as we rediscover the old truth that there is a permanent demand for just the kind of books that you want, we shall turn to a more generous encouragement of them. Men who might do better work will then cease trying to write “best sellers.” But you must pay the price. Since you have become accustomed to buy new books at $1.50 a volume, you are somewhat reluctant to pay $2 or $4 for a new book. You must break yourself of that habit. In a word, you must become at least as generous to your publisher as you are to your shoemaker; and then the change will take place.
By a similar course of reasoning (and it is sound) you may discover that you are yourself to blame for what our writers write and our publishers publish—in a measure at least; and, whenever you want better books, better books will be ready for you. For the publisher and even the author are but human after all; and in the mood that has possessed us all for a decade or two—since presses and paper became so cheap—we have perhaps worshipped mere numbers. I have published some books only because thousands and thousands of persons would read them. You have read them simply because thousands of other people were reading them and for no better reason. Perhaps our sins have not been heinous. But, if you are so stubbornly virtuous as to cry shame at me, I promise you this: I will reform on the day that you yourself reform; but you must first signify repentance. For you—the public—are after all our masters.