ARE AUTHORS AN IRRITABLE TRIBE?
_An Emphatic Answer in the Negative--They Are Gentlemen and Ladies
and Treat Their Publisher with Courtesy--Bonds of Friendship Thus
Formed That Endure--Some Amusing and Nettling Exceptions--Cranks
Among the Scholars--The Inconstant Author Who Is Always Changing
Publishers--Why a Publishing Trust Is Impossible._
The old and persistent notion that the writers of books are an
irritable tribe, hard to deal with, and manageable only by flattery--if
it was ever true, is not true now. During an experience of a good
many years I have suffered a discourtesy from only two. Both these
were “philosophers”--not even poets, nor novelists. They wrote books
that the years have proved are dull; and, when it became my duty to
disappoint them, although I hope I did it courteously, they wrote
ill-tempered letters. The hundreds of other writers of all sorts that
I have had the pleasure to deal with have conducted themselves as men
and women of common sense, and most of them are men and women of very
unusual attractiveness. I doubt whether a man of any other calling has
the privilege of dealing with persons of such graciousness and of such
consideration.
But the women who write require more attention than the men. Their
imaginations are more easily excited by the hope of success, and few of
them have had business experience. They want to be fair and appreciate
frank dealing. Yet they like to have everything explained in great
detail.
One woman, now one of our most successful novelists--successful both
as a writer of excellent books and as an earner of a good income--was
kind enough to seek my advice about one of her early novels. It was a
book that she ought not to have written; the subject was badly chosen.
I frankly told her so. The whole reading world has told her so since.
But naturally she did not agree with me. She took the book to another
publisher. Two years passed. She had a second novel ready. This was one
of the best American stories of a decade. To my great gratification I
received a letter from her one day asking if I cared to read it. Of
course I said yes.
Then came another telling how she had never changed her opinion of her
former book--not a jot--I must understand that thoroughly. If that were
clearly understood she went on to say she would like to have me publish
the new book on two conditions: (1) That I should myself read it
immediately and say frankly what I thought of it, and (2) that I should
pay her a royalty large enough to repair her wounded feelings about
the former book. Subsequently she added another condition--
“You may publish it,” she said, “if you heartily believe in the book.”
Very shrewdly said--that “heartily believe in the book.” For the secret
of good publishing lies there. There are some books that a publisher
may succeed with without believing in them--a dictionary or a slapdash
novel, for examples. But a book that has any sterling quality--a real
book--ought never to have the imprint of a publisher who is not really
a sharer of its fortunes, a true partner with the author. For only with
such a book can he do his best.
I did believe in this book. As soon as it was in type I required every
man in my office who had to do with it to read it--the writer of
“literary notes,” the salesman and even the shipping clerk. When the
author next called I introduced to her all these. They showed their
enthusiasm. She was convinced. The book succeeded in the market almost
beyond her expectations. It is a good book. Everyone of us believes in
it and believes in her.
She is not a crank, “but only a woman.” We have our reward in her
friendship and she is generous enough to think that we have done her
some service. We esteem it a high privilege to be her publishers.
But God save me from another woman who has won a conspicuous success in
the market. The first question she ever asked me was:
“Are you a Christian?”
“Do I look like a Jew or a Mohammedan?” I asked.
She never forgave me. Her novel had a great religious motive. It sold
by the tens of thousands and most maudlin emotionalists in the land
have read it. But I do not publish it. To do so, I should have had to
pay the price of being “converted.” Now this lady is a crank. But it
is not fair to call her books literature.
The veriest crank of all is our great scholar. It is an honor to
publish the results of his scholarship (few parsnips as it butters),
for the man’s work is as attractive as he is odd. He thinks himself
the very soul of fairness. Yet he comes at frequent intervals wishing
so to change his contract as to make publishing his books an even more
expensive luxury than it was before. A contract is to him a thing to
make endless experiments with. When we were once driven to desperation,
one of my associates suggested that we propose half a dozen unimportant
changes in it, on the theory that change--any change--was all he
wanted. It was an inspired suggestion. A great scholar, a restless
child. But some day (we feel) he will break over all traces, and we are
all afraid of him.
But very sane and sensible men and women are most of those who succeed
in winning the public favor. Some are grasping, as other men are. One,
for instance, whose book had earned $7,000 in two years, demanded
a prepayment of $8,000 for the next book. A compromise was made on
$2,000! That was the measure of my folly, for the book is waning in its
popularity and has hardly earned this prepaid royalty.
An author came to my office one day indignant because his novel was not
more extensively advertised. There was the usual explanation--it would
not pay. He had money to spare and he proposed to advertise it himself.
He wrote the advertisements, he selected the journals in which the
advertisements should appear, and he inserted them--$1,000 worth.
By some strange fate the sales of the book began just then greatly
to decline. They have kept declining since, and why nobody can tell.
When the public has bought a certain number of copies of a novel--of
one novel it may be 1,000 copies, of another 100,000 copies--there is
nothing that can be done to make it buy another 1,000 or 100,000. It
seems to know when it has enough. Take more it will not. The worst
“crank” that any publisher ever encountered is not an author; it is the
public, unreasoning, illogical, unconvincible, stolid!
Odd persons are found in every craft. But I think that there are fewer
odd ones among successful writers than among successful lawyers, for
instance. And this is what one would naturally expect, but for the
traditional notion that writers are unbalanced. Who else is so well
balanced as the writer of good books? He must have sanity and calmness
and judgment, a sense of good proportion, an appreciation of right
conduct and of all human relations, else he could not make books of
good balance and proportion.
Most writers have few financial dealings, and they often innocently
propose impracticable things. But this is not a peculiar trait of
writers. Most preachers and many women show it. I have known a
successful college president, for instance, to cut a paragraph out of a
proof sheet with a pair of scissors, imagining that this would cause it
to be taken out by the printers.
They are appreciative, too; and they make the most interesting friends
in the world. Almost all writers of books work alone. Lawyers work with
clients and with associated and opposing lawyers. Even teachers have
the companionship of their pupils in the work. Men of most crafts work
with their fellows, and they forget how much encouragement they owe to
this fellowship. A dreary task is made light by it and monotonous labor
is robbed of its weariness. But the writer works alone.
Almost the first man to be taken into his confidence about his work
is his publisher. If the publisher be appreciative and sympathetic
and render a real service, how easily and firmly the writer is won.
A peculiarly close friendship follows in many cases--in most cases,
perhaps, certainly in most cases when the author’s books are successful.
And this is why a great publishing trust, or “merger” is impossible.
The successful publisher sustains a relation to the successful author
that is not easily transferable. It is a personal relation. A great
corporation cannot take a real publisher’s place in his attitude to the
authors he serves.
This is the reason, too, why the “authors’ agents” seldom succeed
in raising the hopes of unsuccessful writers. As soon as a writer
and a publisher have come into a personal relation that is naturally
profitable and pleasant, a “go-between” has no place. There is no
legitimate function for him.
Writers are as constant in their relations as other men and women.
As they acquire experience, they become more constant. Every one for
himself works his way to this conclusion--once having an appreciative
and successful publisher, it is better to hold to him. And the strong
friendships that grow out of this relation are among the most precious
gains to each.
One publisher said to another the other day: “I see by your
announcements that one of my authors has gone to you--you are welcome.”
“Yes,” was the reply, “I have in almost every instance made a mistake
when I have taken in a dissatisfied writer--one cannot make lasting
friends with them.”
Every great publishing house has been built on the strong friendships
between writers and publishers. There is, in fact, no other sound
basis to build on; for the publisher cannot do his highest duty to
any author whose work he does not appreciate, and with whom he is not
in sympathy. Now, when a man has an appreciation of your work and
sympathy for it, he wins you. This is the simplest of all psychological
laws--the simplest of all laws of friendship and one of the soundest.
Those who know the personal history of the publishing houses that in
recent years have failed or met embarrassments know that, in most
cases, one cause of decline was the drawing apart of publishers and
authors. When authors begin to regard their publishers as mere business
agents, and publishers to regard authors as mere “literary men” with
whom they have only business relations, the beginning of a decline has
come.
I recall as one of the pleasantest days of my life the day on which
I accepted a book by an author I had never before seen. So pleasant
was our correspondence that I took the first occasion I could to go
nearly a thousand miles to see him. In his own house we talked about
his literary plans, and I spent a day always to be remembered. Our
friendship began then. Of course I was interested in his work--you
cannot long feign an interest that you do not feel. This friendship has
lasted now long enough to make it very much more secure a bond than any
merely commercial service could have become.
Every publisher’s experience is the same--if he be a real publisher
and will long remain a real publisher. Else he would be only a printer
and a salesman, and mere printers and salesmen have not often built
publishing houses. For publishing houses have this distinction over
most other commercial institutions--they rest on the friendship of the
most interesting persons in the world, the writers of good books.
The more formal cultivation of friendly relations such as the famous
dinners that some publishers used regularly to give to writers has
gone out of fashion. There are yet a few set dinners in the routine
of several American publishing houses. But every true publisher knows
the authors of his books--knows them as his friends; and the tradition
of irritability is false. It is usually the unsuccessful who are
irritable, whether they be authors or not.