It may be taken as a general statement that if a book possesses
sufficient merit to warrant its publication at all, a publisher can
be found who is willing to assume the entire risk of the expense of
publication. This statement does not apply to scientific, technical,
or special works which publishers are glad to have upon their lists,
but which must be subsidized from some source in order to make
publication financially possible. In the case of a novel, the statement
has no exceptions. No first-class publishing-house will issue with
its imprint, at the author's expense, a novel in which it cannot have
sufficient confidence to warrant it in assuming the entire expense.
Frequently the unknown author, eager to secure the publication of his
work, is willing to make any sacrifice, or any terms, with almost any
house which is willing to assist him in accomplishing the desired
result. In fact, there are publishing firms who confine their
operations to the publication of manuscripts to be paid for entirely by
the writer. The general proposition is that the author assumes the cost
of publication, the publisher places against this his expense of doing
business, and the value--such as it is--of his imprint; and then author
and publisher divide the profits.
Unfortunately, it is the rarest thing that there are any profits to
divide; and the part of the whole transaction which is deplorable is
that the publisher must know in advance that he has, to a certain
extent, played upon the vanity of the author,--not so much, perhaps, in
what he has actually said to him, as in the fact that he has shown an
enthusiasm which leads the author to think that he has really produced
a "best seller." There is a legitimate fee for privately-printed books
if the author goes into the transaction with his eyes open, and accepts
the services of the publisher as an agent, allowing the publisher's
profit to stand as a return for services rendered.
Authors should be particularly wary of heeding solicitations from
publishing-houses for manuscripts to be published in this way.