In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 2 Publishing A publisher ought, in short, to harness contradictory clualitics by gambling patiently. -Willi,m~ Jovanovich (1964) Book publishing, in America and elsewhere, is different from ordinary business. In this chapter we shall examine some of the characteristics that make it distinctive and that aRect the author's ability to earn money from ~vriting. These characteristics i~iclude the great variety of the product, the relation of new titles to the backlist, the necessity of cross-subsidization within large houses, the balance between fixed costs and running costs, the importance of the advance, and the struggle for price maintenance. The chicf factor that makes book publishing disti~ictivefrom other business is the enormous variety of its product. "A book is a thing b ! . itself," wrote Henry Holt. "There is nothing like it, as one shoe is like another, or as one kind of \vhiskey is like another. Intelligent book buyers want that book; no other will fill its place."' Because books are specialized , varied merchandise, they are difficult to market. Certain products, such as foodstuffs, are sold to practically the entire general public, but the novice publisher quickly learns that there is no single "general reading public," despite what book critics and literary historians might think. 111stead there are many small publics for the printed word, some of nrhich overlap, and all of which must be approached by different marketing and distributio~i strategies. The typical America11trade publisher duri~ig this century has ofired a great variety of books to the consumer. By 1 1 0means all of that ofYering has been literary or belletristic. Publishers' lists have co~itained popular historv, memoirs, biography, travel books, social commentarji, and much other nonfiction. Educational, technical, and specialist books have often been predictable sellers, as have cookbooks, how-to-do-it books, and technical nianuals-all devised for specific markets and often written by authors to a~liom publishers have assigned these topics. Some publishers I . "The Commercialization ofL,itcmturc," Atlarztzc Muntldr 96 (Nov. 1905):(96. have established separate divisions for children's books and religious titles; others have specialized in textbooks and reference works, kvhich call yield predictable sales over long periocls of time. 111a large American tradc firm, these various types of books have usually been published under the same imprint, or under a group of related imprints, but the books havc really been issued by small, separate units within the parent company, each one of u~hich has had its okvn editorial, production, and pronlotio~lstaffs. These small publishing units havc shared distribution arrangements and have been financially interrelated, but in most respects they havc been self-contained business units, loosely bound together within the larger company. Until fairly recently, British and Continental publishing did not folIo\v this pattern, and it is still not so widespread in Europe as it is in Anlerica. The typical publishing operation there has in the past resembled a small to midsized business; the typical Anlerican trade house, by contrast, has Inore nearly resembled a clepartment store. An important feature of publishing that has also distinguished it from most other businesses is the backlist. Until fairly recently, a high percentage of a tradc publisher's earnings came from the backlist, and it \$.as in the publisher's best interest to build a recog~lizable and consistentlv profitable line of titles that would sell steadily over the long term. once a backlist Lvas established, in fact, it Lvas difficult for the publisher to change its character or the image of the firm that the backlist had created. A strong backlist protected the publisher during slo\v seasons or economic recessions. In fact, the publisher could cut back on nc\v titles or cease new publishing altogether and simply manage, or "milk," the backlist . Most American trade publishers before 1930 attempted to strike a balance between new titles ancl backlist staples. If the backlist were allo~vedto become overly large ancl the volumes did not sell with suf£icient rapidity, then too much capital was tied up in stock ancl too much cash eaten up by ~varehousi~lg. In such cases, the publisher cvcnt~~ally faced a crisis in liquiditv. 011 the other hand, if most of the titles on the current list sold out in the short nln, then the publisher had no dependable backlist to generate operating expenses or venture capital and had to colltillue to issue quick sellers. Most publishers therefore lcar~led to give some attention to less volatile...

Share