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.
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.
In a word, commercially unprofitable books may be printed, but they
cannot be published without ruining the machinery that they are run
through. He is the best publisher who has the largest proportion of
good books on his list (whether his list be long or short) that are at
the same time alive in the market.
There are--let it be said as an exception--a few classes of books that
every publisher wishes to have on his list in spite of the fact that
they cannot be made profitable, such as works of great scholarship or
monumental works that have a lasting value. It is legitimate that the
writers or the societies or organizations under whose directions such
books were written should pay or share the cost of their manufacture.
But few such works yield a profit at last to either publisher or
author. And they are not made to clog the book market. They are sold
only to special classes of readers.
A book is a commodity. Yet the moment it is treated as a mere commodity
it takes severe revenge on its author and on its publisher.
These pseudo-publishers sometimes solicit manuscripts from ignorant
writers. They have veiled advertisements in the literary journals.
Ignorance and ambition is a susceptible combination. Several years ago
one of these plausible swindlers bribed a reader in one of the larger
publishing houses to report to him the names of all the writers whose
novels were declined there. The fakir then plied them with circulars
and letters.
While I have been writing about publishing swindles I have been
reminded of the accusation brought several years ago against
publishers--especially English publishers--that the temptation to
fraud was too strong to be resisted by any but the most upright and
successful men. An author gives his book to his publisher. Twice a year
the publisher makes a report--pays royalties on the number of books
that he has reported as sold. There is no way whereby the author can
verify the publisher’s reports. He has to take his word for it. Even
if the author or someone who acted for him were to see the publisher’s
books, he could learn nothing, for the publisher’s bookkeeping is a
very complicated thing; and reports of book sales could easily be
“doctored.”
The chance for fraud does exist. But the first wish of every normal
man in the business, even if he lacks vigorous honesty, is to make his
reports of sales to his author as large as possible. This wish is too
strong to be overcome by anything less than the most hopeless moral
depravity. A publisher who should commit the crime of making false
reports to his authors would be a monstrosity. Yet the contention
that Sir Walter Besant made in England for so many years, that the
publishing business was conducted without such checks and verifications
as are applied to other business transactions was true; and I, for one,
see no practical remedy for it.
Moral: Select your publisher with care; make sure that he is honest
(by far most of us are); then trust him. But steer clear of all “fake”
publishers and “agents.”