I am, therefore, not making a plea, by this confession, for a larger profit to the publisher in any narrow or personal sense. Every successful publisher—really successful, mind you—could make more money by going into some other business. I think that there is not a man of them who could not greatly increase his income by giving the same energy and ability to the management of a bank, or of some sort of industrial enterprise. Such men as Mr. Charles Scribner, Mr. George Brett, Mr. George H. Mifflin, could earn very much larger returns by their ability in banks, railroads or manufacturing, than any one of them earns as a publisher; for they are men of conspicuous ability.
It is, therefore, not as a matter of mere gain to the publisher that it is important to have the business on a sound and fair basis; but it is for the sake of the business itself and for the sake of the writers themselves.
AN AUTHOR’S BLUNDER
Here is a true tale of a writer of good fiction: He made a most promising start. His first book, in fact, caused him to be sought by several publishers, who do not hesitate to solicit clients—a practice that other dignified professions discourage. The publisher of his first book gave him a ten per cent. royalty. For his second book he demanded more. A rival publisher offered him twenty per cent. The second book also succeeded. But the author in the meantime had heard the noise of other publishing houses. He had made the acquaintance of another writer whose books (which were better than his) had sold in much greater quantities. Of course, the difference in sales could not be accounted for by the literary qualities of the books—his friend had a better publisher than he—so he concluded. His third book, therefore, was placed with a third publisher, because he would advertise more loudly. Well, that publisher failed. His failure, by the way, the report of the receivers showed, was caused by spending too much in unproductive advertising.
Here our author stood, then, with three books, each issued by a different publishing house. What should he do with his fourth book? He came back to his second publisher, who had, naturally, lost some of his enthusiasm for such an author. To cut the story short, that man now has books on five publishers’ lists. Not one of the publishers counts him as his particular client. In a sense his books are all neglected. One has never helped another. He has got no cumulative result of his work. He has become a sort of stray dog in the publishing world. He has cordial relations with no publisher; and his literary product has really declined. He scattered his influence, and he is paying the natural penalty.
The moral of this true story (and I could tell half a dozen more like it) is that a publisher is a business man, but not a mere business man. He must be something more. He is a professional man also. He can do his best service only for those authors who inspire his loyalty, who enable him to make his publishing house permanent, and who leave him enough margin of profit to permit him to make books of which he can be proud.
The present fashion of a part of the writing world—to squeeze the last cent out of a book and to treat the publisher as a mere manufacturer and “boomer”—cannot last. It has already passed its high period and is on the decline. A self-respecting worm would have turned long ago. Even the publisher is now beginning to turn.
Better still, the authors whose books will be remembered longest have not caught the fashion of demanding everything. It was that passing school of “booms” and bellowing that did it all—the writers of romances for kitchen maids and shop girls, whose measure of book values was by dollars only. Such fashions always pass. For, if novel writing be so profitable an industry, a large number of persons naturally take it up; and they ruin the market by overstocking it.
THE “BOOMED” BOOK PASSING
Fast passing, then—praise God—is the “boomed” book, which, having no merit, could once be sold by sheer advertising, in several editions of 100,000 each. I have made a list of the writers of books that during the last five or six years have sold in enormous editions; and every one of these writers, but two, has lived to see his (or her) latest book sell far below its predecessors. One man, for instance, wrote a first book which sold more than 200,000 copies. His publishers announce only the sixtieth thousand of his latest novel, though it has now nearly run its course.