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.