Publisher

“ And the larger, the more popular, and the more widely read the paper, the better will be the prices which advertisers 14 will pay, and the more will be the advertisements. And so the publisher tries to sell as many papers as he can, partly because of the money which he gets for them, but more, because the more he sells the more advertising will he get, and the better rates will he charge for it. So, Tom, if you ever become the publisher of a newspaper, you must set your heart on getting an editor who will make a paper that will sell—whatever else he does or does not do. ”

“ To the printer the librarian would say: since wishing is easy, let us imagine that what ought always to happen is happening regularly instead of rarely, namely, that the author produces a book worth printing and that the publisher leaves you free to put it into a worthy form. This is the opportunity that you have always been looking for. How are you going to meet it? Do you know all the elements that you deal with and can you handle them with a sure touch practically and esthetically? If so, you will not need any hints from the librarian, and he will order your book "sight unseen." ”

“ The early separation of publishing from bookselling is touched upon, and the emergence of publishers as a separate class is outlined. The transitory phenomenon of the man of letters assisting the publisher in an advisory capacity as to the suitability of manuscripts submitted for publication is an interesting chapter in the expansion of the publishing business. Publishing being today largely a commercial affair, the literary reader has in the main been supplanted by the man of business with an aptitude for estimating how many copies of a given book can be sold. ”

“ If a publisher has an edition of five, ten or one hundred thousand of a book to be delivered in piece, or single copies, an express company representative will see him at once—often see him before the book is from the press. ”

“ The relations between author and publisher which had prevailed in the eighteenth century were, in his case, curiously inverted, and, in the place of a solitary scholar like Johnson, surrounded by an association of booksellers, the drawing-room of Murray now presented the remarkable spectacle of a single publisher acting as the centre of attraction to a host of distinguished writers. ”

“ The relation between author and publisher ought to be neither complicated nor peculiar. The author may sell his product outright, or he may sell himself by an agreement similar to that which an employee in a manufacturing establishment makes with his master to give to the establishment all his inventions. ”

“ Every book is talked over with somebody. Now, when a publishing house has a head—an owner—who will read every important manuscript, and freely and frankly talk or write about it, and can give sympathetic suggestions, that is the sort of publishing house that will win and hold the confidence of the best writers. From one point of view the publisher is a manufacturer and salesman. From another point of view he is the personal friend and sympathetic adviser of authors—a man who has a knowledge of literature and whose judgment is worth having. ”

“ Thus the author is dependent upon the publisher for the standard of excellence he must attain in order to achieve success; the publisher is dependent upon the dealer, not only in forming his judgment of the character of books that will sell, but also for the number that he may safely print; while the dealer is dependent upon his best and most critical patrons. ”

“ But what of the young man or woman who has determined to devote himself to the difficult craft of writing, who has beaten out a book to his best ability, and is looking for a publisher? What do you do?
Well, of course, there is nothing to prevent you from bundling up your manuscript and mailing it to various publishers. Experience shows, however, that very few manuscripts submitted “cold” or, in the trade phrase, “over the transom” (obviously the mailman can’t stick a manuscript through the letter slot) , ever see the light of day. ”

“ A sufficient introduction to a publisher is to send him the manuscript, accompanied by a note requesting his opinion as soon as convenient. If he approves it, and believes it will be profitable, there is no doubt of his being willing to print the work. And if he thinks he shall make nothing by it, it is equally certain that he will decline the offer. It is too much to expect that he will be so regardless of his own interest as to publish a book, the sale of which will not remunerate him for the cost of paper and printing. ”

“ As the publisher is still soliciting annual subscriptions to the enterprise, and offering a variety of advantages after methods not unknown in England among the by-ways of periodical literature, the completion of the work is probably a distant satisfaction for those who take interest therein. ”

“ In this case, the author has no joint interest with the publisher, being but one of many contributors to the magazine as a whole. In an article in their "Bulletin," the Authors' League refers to these dealings as follows:
"In his relations with the magazine publisher, the short-story writer may be considered either as an independent merchant, peddling his wares, or as an employee,—on the same plane with the ink-dealer and the paper-house, say, or on the same plane with the sub-editor and the cashier. ”

“ If the reader desires to try his own hand in the work of publishing, we wish him well, and advise him that the only way in which he may hope to realize sales is by carrying out, as well as he can, the regular methods of the publisher. ”

“ Therefore drawings intended for publication imply a publisher, and one who is not merely a man with pronounced artistic taste, but also a good administrator and a capable man of business. These triple qualifications are found but rarely together, and when they do unite, the influence of such a personality is of the utmost importance. Mr. Strahan, who appears to have combined in no small degree the qualities which go to make a successful publisher, set on foot two popular magazines, which, in spite of their having long passed their first quarter of a century, are still holding their own. ”

“ The reason that an author chooses one publisher instead of many is the simple one that the original cost of making and advertising a book is in this way reduced to one outlay instead of multiplied in many, and that this cost is minimized by being distributed over the largest possible edition. ”

“ Every one must be judged by itself. Five successful books are no absolute guaranty that the sixth will not be worthless.
It seems to me, also, that there is no business in which so few checks exist as in that of publishing. An author, we will say, agrees to receive ten per cent. on the retail price of all copies of his works that are sold, but he has literally nothing but the publisher's word by which to know how many copies are sold. ”

“ What do I pay them ninety per cent. for, I should like to know, if not that? Publishing is their business. That they have done more than another publisher would, I deny. They have simply transacted their business in the way they deemed most profitable to themselves. I deny147 that they have done anything for me out of the usual course of trade.
“About the advertising, I am indeed not fully persuaded.... Possibly the books have had their day and would have fallen off any way. A fortnight or so ago, perhaps more, Mr. Smith applied to me to write for his paper. I named my price. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Henry’s complaints concerning futile and troublesome correspondence might, of course, be repeated in many a publishing office to-day, but the modern publisher is helped out of the difficulty to some extent by his stenographers and typewriters. It remains a marvel how it was possible, without any time-saving appliances, for the publishers of the fifteenth century to conduct a complicated business, to give personal labour to preparing for the press works calling for original scholarship and detailed labour, and to carry on, in autographic letters, literary and theological correspondence. ”

“ The labor, however, of placing the literary production in the hands of the reader and of collecting from these the compensation for the authors, required an intermediary,—some one to create the machinery for distribution and collection, and usually also to assume the risk and investment required. Literary property could, therefore, come into an assured existence only after, or simultaneously with, the evolution of the publisher. ”

“ Prompt Publication.—From the standpoint of both the author and the publisher it is desirable that a book should be put on the market as soon as possible after the manuscript is completed.
From the moment the publisher undertakes to manufacture a book he has an investment which grows rapidly and yields nothing until the sales of the book begin. ”

“ Don't let a publisher persuade you that the appearance of your work in his journal will bring you a fame and a name that will enable you to sell MSS. elsewhere. Every editor knows how such a man gets his matter, and values his contributors accordingly; and every publication which can assist you in your career pays for whatever matter it uses. ”

“ There is no question that the ideal situation from the point of view of both the publisher and the public, is to have a very large number of distributors intensely vying with each other in both price and service. ”

“ 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.
19 These are not pleasant facts. I wish that every novelist might have an increasing sale for every book he writes. They all earn more than they receive—even the bad ones whose books prosper; but the system that they brought with them deserves to die—must die, if publishing is to remain an honorable profession. ”

“ Authors have been known to become their own publishers, generally, I believe, to their lasting regret; why, therefore, should not a publisher become his own author? At least he would find some difficulty in proving to the world that his failure was due to under-advertising. ”

“ It is generally understood that the name of an Established Publisher operates not only as a Recommendation to those Works to which it is Prefixed, but also tends to make them known through Extensive Connexions already formed. It also tends to associate them with other Popular Works issuing from the same Establishment. ”

“ It is usual for the publisher, when he is employed as agent between the author and printer, to charge a commission of ten per cent, on all payments he makes. If the author is informed of this custom previously to his commencing the work, as was the case in the present instance, he can have no just cause of complaint; for it is optional whether he himself employs the printer, or communicates with him through the intervention of his publisher. ”

“ Whether from a desire to extol the past or not, it is certain that those publishers who have been established more than a quarter of a century claim to have sold far larger editions of their high-priced illustrated volumes then than any moderately truthful publisher or editor would dare to claim for similar ventures to-day. ”

“ Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity of checking, or at least limiting, those French republications. You may let all your authors publish what they please against me and mine. A publisher is not, and cannot be, responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's. ”

“ We could not, perhaps, give him higher praise than in saying that he was as good as a publisher as he was indifferent as a poet.
363
KELLY AND VIRTUE:
THE “NUMBER” TRADE. The “Number Publishers” may be looked upon as the modern pioneers of literature; their books are circulated by a peculiar method, among a peculiar public, almost entirely through the agency of their own canvassers, without the intervention of any other bookseller, and the works thus sold are scarcely known to the ordinary members of the publishing world. ”

“ A publisher, impressed by his self-confidence and success placed him at the head of a publishing enterprise in which he had long been stimulating interest in the best literary circles:—a monthly collection of biographies of great men, short, clear, eloquent and accurate and very cheap; by means of which he hoped to rouse young men from their apathy and to incite them by example to a more profitable use of their time. ”

“ I will not leave this portion of the topic without saying that a perfectly harmonious relation between authors and publishers is most earnestly to be desired, nor without the frank acknowledgment that, in literary tradition and in the present experience, many of the most noble friendships and the most generous and helpful relations have subsisted, as they ought always to subsist, between the producers and the distributors of literature, especially when the publisher has a love for literature, and the author is a reasonable being and takes pains to inform himself about the publishing business. ”

“ Their wonderful march to their eminent and leading position as publishers has given an excellent example to the country in refining and solidifying the common rules of business in their own field, and elevating and dignifying a branch of trade than which not one is clothed with nobler and purer associations. From this house, also, go forth a quarterly, two monthlies, and a weekly magazine, any one of which would add lustre to the repute of the publishers. None but sound and sweet literature comes from hence. ”