Publishing

“ The cheapened process of book publication on a large scale, and the investment of large sums of money in the publishing business, with its mechanics of sale management as well as printing, has made possible an enormous output of literature on all subjects and has widened the range of general information in possession of the public. The whole system of modern life would be impossible without the press. ”

“ While the reissue of the accepted classics of previous generations remained (and must always remain) an important division of the business of publishing, an ever increasing proportion of the work of the publishers came to be given to the comparatively routine work of distributing among readers the literature of the day, in the production of which literature the authors have, in part, led and directed, and, in part, simply followed and supplied the tastes and the demands of their readers. ”

“ WORKS FOR AUTHORS.
Having been for many years engaged in conducting an extensive Publishing Business comprising the productions of the most Popular Writers, the Publishers of this little Work beg leave respectfully to state that they have, in consequence of repeated applications, now devoted a branch of their Establishment to conducting the
PUBLICATION OF
WORKS FOR AUTHORS, securing to them the direction and controul, as well as the entire proceeds and property of their Publications. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No book on which serious work has been done ought to be rejected or accepted without the benefit of the independent reports of two or three sensible persons who have carefully read it, and without the discussions of these reports by three or four other persons of experience and judgment. And in at least three American88 publishing houses every manuscript of any value or promise runs a course of hopeful consideration such as this; for the publisher wants good new books, he wants good new writers; and he wants them badly. Half a dozen popular writers will build a publishing house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are also extant a great many valuable periodical, magazine and newspaper articles which set forth in some detail accounts of the founders of other nineteenth century publishing houses, which accounts, together with what has appeared in book form, make a rather inchoate but highly valuable mass of data that could and should be compiled and published as soon as a scholarly man of historical habit can be found to edit and prepare it for the press. ”

“ About this time, the Athenian press seemed to have been seized with an unwonted interest in the book trade, and began to break out in sapient and significant little paragraphs like the following, which I copy from the “Athenian Tribune,” of September 30, 1768:—
“Book Publishing.—There is no class of business so liable to misconstruction and misunderstanding, as that of a publisher of books. It is difficult for an author to understand the business aspects of publishing a book. ”

“ As most of the publishing houses seem to have changed into mere job-printing offices, publishing nothing for which they are not paid in advance, or which they cannot pick up for nothing, there seems small encouragement for verse-writers who are not prepared to hire their books printed. ”

“ He is not and cannot become, consistently with the proper pursuit of his own profession, sufficiently acquainted with the details of publishing to know whether a measure proposed by a publisher be or be not fair. ”

“ At this stage in the history of book-production, the “producers,” the men who brought into existence the current literature of the time, and who, having planned [16] and initiated the undertakings, taken the risks, met the outlay, and provided the labour (in many cases with their own heads and hands) , claimed the ownership of the works produced, were the publishers. The literature with which the publishing of printed books was entered upon was comprised, with a few rare exceptions, of editions of old-time classics, prepared to meet the requirements of the scholars of the day. ”

“ Publication has evolved its meaning of communication by means of print, through restricting an earlier meaning of any kind of communication—although the wider meaning is retained in legal procedure, as publishing a libel. ”

“ The Unknown Public has its literature already,—a literature which enjoys an enormous circulation, and gives absolute satisfaction. One publishing company alone, "for the people," claims that its penny novelettes, issued weekly, reach seven millions of readers, and these seven millions are evidently content with what they receive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a publisher shows me receipted bills for the sums he has actually paid in manufacturing and publishing my books, and for the sums he has received from their sale, I will—take them to an expert for examination ”

“ The publishing trade, I understand, continues to be much depressed, and authors are driven to solicit or invite subscriptions, as being in many cases the only means for giving their works to the world. ”

“ The methods employed by the various publishing-houses in keeping and rendering their accounts with authors vary with each house, but all publishers are alike to the extent of realizing that this end of the business must be absolutely above suspicion. ”

“ But publishing had greater attractions for him, and he made a first venture as a publisher by issuing between 1821 and 1831 reprints of classical authors in a series of miniature volumes in 48mo or 32mo. ”

“ The list of every publishing house has its special characteristics and the reader of books will naturally associate certain types of books with certain imprints; it is desirable that he should, aiding the bookseller, when possible, in the quest for publications of a special sort. ”

“ The evidence of culture, judgment, sagacity, energy, boldness, tact, skill, and whatever else goes to the building up of a publishing house known at home and abroad for its magnitude and the extent and variety of its ventures, is literally such that he who runs may read and see that it is beyond controversy. This is not extravagant praise or mere compliment; but simply the statement of the truth as made manifest by the facts.
“In this general reference to Messrs. Hunt, Parry, & Co., we must not, in passing, omit an allusion to their periodicals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These journals were run by a band of vigorous and facile prose-writers, [235] who in their differing degrees of excellence represent almost a new type in our literature.
4. The New Publishing Houses. The interest in politics, and probably the decline in the drama, caused a great increase in the size of the reading public. In its turn this aroused the activities of a number of men who became the forerunners of the modern publishing houses. ”

“ PUBLISHED BY THE FINE ART SOCIETY. Note.—The rule of the Society in publishing Books is to make an issue sufficient only to meet the demand at the time of publication. By so doing they find the subscribers are materially benefited, as their books quickly increase in value.
Mr. Ruskin’s Notes on his Turner Drawings. Exhibited at The Fine Art Society’s Galleries, 1878. Illustrated Large-paper Edition, consisting of 750 copies. ”

“ Printing-houses that pretend to turn out careful work, such as publishing books and periodicals, should follow some model of unquestioned authority; but as proper exemplars are not often at hand, the daily newspaper, being omnipresent, is taken for a pattern. ”

“ Embarking in the business of publishing, like embarking in any other business, is determined partly by the relative attractiveness of the occupation and partly by the promised returns of capital. There is no reason to think that the occupation of publishing differs widely from other occupations in attractiveness ”

“ A bibliography of published research through 1969 on printing and publishing in the United States. Entries are organized geographically and then chronologically by date of coverage or publication in most of the nine divisions: regional lists; genre lists (by type, form, or subject) ; author lists (limited essentially to descriptive bibliographies or lists of editions) ; published copyright records; important or representative auction, booksellers’, exhibition, and library catalogs; retrospective book trade directories; studies of individual printers and publishers; general studies ”

“ It would be easy to name a half-dozen other great subjects which writers who now bring their manuscripts to the publishing houses are neglecting. If, therefore, men and women who have the literary gift, even to a reasonable degree, and who have literary ambition, would frankly seek those two or three publishers who are real publishers and would prove their ability to do serious work of this sort they would be almost sure to find satisfactory careers before them. ”

“ I won't deny that your book publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours, both as to its tendency to encourage a real literary vocation, and, quite as important, to discourage mere scribblers ”

“ The first step that should be taken by an Author intending to produce a Work should be to take the opinion of an experienced Publisher, by doing which not only much unnecessary trouble may be spared, but frequently much unavailable labour and even expense. ”

“ They are the "natural resources" which simplified the problems of our early years and made possible our rapid development and growth, until today, by the application of the same editorial standards and marketing methods, in broader fields, we are able to offer to the author of technical books a highly developed machinery of publication and distribution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Generally speaking, Publishers are the most competent advisers on all subjects connected with their peculiar avocations, having constantly before them the best means of judging, and being naturally interested in the success of the Works in which they engage. ”

“ That the educational publisher is doing that work with much greater skill now than at any time during the past two centuries is manifest; that he will, as time grows apace, do it increasingly better, who can doubt? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Excepting the temptations of their trade, doubtless a hundred publishers are as honest as a hundred authors, and surely they have a great deal more business sagacity.257 But as soon as authors turn publishers they fall into all the publisher's temptations without acquiring his business power; so that when you have chemically combined author and publisher you have an amalgam wholly and disastrously different from either of the original simples, namely, a publisher minus his common sense.
No, the publisher is not an artificial member of society. Like all other middle-men he meets a real want. ”