CHAPTER VI

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.”