The Columbia History of the American Novel

condition of publication, it is not a sufficient one. Once a work of fiction finds its way into an editor's hands, what determines its fate? One obvious answer would be, 'the editor's taste.' Kadushin, Coser, and Powell found that the average editor was white, Protestant, male, and middlebrow in cultural orientation. Although the editors in their sample read a great deal, they also went to the movies often and attended sporting events: the authors' conclusion was that 'the needs of the market, not personal preference, seem to rule' where an editor's taste is concerned.

Referring taste to 'the needs of the market' only means that one needs to know how editors determine those needs. The answers editors themselves give to this question tend to be somewhat contradictory. Those I have spoken to about the publishing of literary fiction tended to describe themselves as seeking to publish 'quality' work, and as being unconcerned with profit: one editor went so far as to express the opinion that no writers of quality go unpublished. According to these editors, literary fiction always loses money, and is routinely subsidized by commercially successful publications. Asked about advertising and market research, an editor I interviewed remarked that 'one of the strange things about publishing is that one -683- doesn't have a very good sense for most books of who the audience really is…. We don't do any research on it'; another responded by reciting one of the basic credos of publishing, that 'the problem with market research in publishing is that every book is a different product: it's not like toothpaste, where once you have a certain brand, every tube is the same as every other tube.' In place of planning, editors cite the mysterious exercise of free choice by the audience as the major factor in determining the success or failure of a book.

None of these claims accords very well with the known facts of the publishing industry, though: the profit from best-sellers is at least as likely to be absorbed by the huge advance for the next best-seller as it is to subsidize 'serious' but commercially unsuccessful works of fiction, and commercial considerations do enter very directly into all aspects of editorial decision making. According to the survey by Kadushin, Coser, and Powell, decision-making meetings at major publishing houses were attended by the editor in chief (85 percent of the time), publisher (75 percent), sales staff (63 percent), president (58 percent), managing editor (50 percent), marketing staff (46 percent), production staff (27 percent), assistant editors (24 percent), and, last, representatives of the parent corporation (16 percent). Sales and marketing people tend to take a less mystified view of what they do, and there is ample evidence that, in many cases, it is these people who cast the deciding votes.

The pressure to consider sales has always been part of publishing, but there are indications that it now enters into the process much earlier than it once did: Roger Straus III explains that, whereas traditionally the decision to publish came first and questions about how to find the audience for that book came later, now marketing considerations are likely to determine whether the book will be published at all. Editors themselves are not immune from these pressures, especially since in many houses editorial 'productivity' is now a condition of employment. As Morton Janklow candidly observed, 'For good or ill, the old style of editor and publisher is slowly passing from the scene. Now there's a much more energetic, more driving — and, I must say, more profit-oriented — publisher arising.'

It should be added, though, that prestige has its own market value, and the prestigious author may be worth publishing even if his or her books are unlikely to sell many copies or be made into movies. Ka-684- Ka-, Coser, and Powell found that 70 percent of the editors they interviewed listed the prestige of an author as either 'critical' or 'very important' in deciding whether to publish. Publishing authors of certified literary merit has both personal and professional value for an editor: personally, it helps to justify the time spent on other, less estimable projects; professionally, it benefits the editor's reputation with authors and other editors. This value may be intangible, but it can be indirectly profitable, since authors who are themselves commercially viable may be more inclined to publish with a house that lists a number of artistically renowned authors among its clientele.

Deciding what to publish is only half the battle: getting that book to the reader is the other half. The major problem facing the novel has always been to identify and reach its audience, and in America this problem has been exacerbated by the historical lack of an adequate distribution system. The size of this country, the dispersion of its population, and the practical difficulties of transporting goods across long distances at reasonable costs have always posed a problem for American publishers. In the nineteenth century, the advent of a railroad system began to solve some of these problems, but even then a nationwide marketing system did not develop.

As James L. W. West points out in his American Authors and the Literary Marketplace Since 1900 (1988), the absence of such a system was a determining factor in the success of 'two of the most important innovations in book distribution during this century — paperbacks and book clubs.' Both of these methods of 'recycling' the texts originally produced by trade publishing houses took hold during the twenties and thirties 'because trade publishers could not exploit the national market through conventional means'; the solution hit upon by paperback publishers was to use the existing magazine distribution network (this is why we have paperbacks in airports, drugstores, and supermarkets), and book clubs solved the problem by using the United States postal service. Book clubs were opposed by trade publishers, often in court, until the 1950s; by that time, clubs like the Book-of-the-Month Club (founded in 1926) and the Literary Guild (founded in 1927) had become ineradicable features of the publishing landscape, in large part because of their success in reaching a targeted group of paying readers through direct mailing. Modern paperback publishing, which began with the establishment of Pocket Books in -685- 1939 and Bantam Books in 1945, received a critical boost in its rise to power in the literary marketplace at about the same time. During World War II, the Council on Books in Wartime (founded by Farrar, Norton, and other leading publishers) issued more than 123.5 million copies of paperback books to servicemen, in the Armed Services and Overseas editions.

The success of both paperbacks and book clubs is part of what many have seen as the commercialization of publishing during the last fifty years. A number of people, notably Ted Solotaroff and Thomas Whiteside, have cited the so-called blockbuster phenomenon as a principal culprit in this process. Beginning in the 1960s, publishers started paying huge amounts for the rights to potential bestsellers: a major part of this sudden inflation in contract prices has been the rise in the importance of subsidiary rights. Kadushin et al. observe:

In the nineteenth century, a hardcover trade book's profit was determined by the number of copies sold to individual readers. Today, it is usually determined by the sale of subsidiary rights to movie companies, book clubs, foreign publishers, or paperback reprint houses.

Subsidiary rights can also involve television, merchandise (T-shirts, dolls, etc.), and other tie-ins; in fact, the sales of the book itself often depend on the successful promotion and sale of subsidiary items and productions. The result of this is that the direct sale of books to individuals is far less important than it once was — a situation analogous to that in professional sports, where (as West points out) gate receipts have been overshadowed by the sale of television rights. In the words of Richard E. Snyder, chairman of the board of Simon and Schuster, books 'are the software of the television and movie media,' and, in fact, one-third of the movies produced each year are based on books. Richard Kostelanetz gives the worst-case account of the influence of subsidiary rights on editorial decision making when he says that 'suitability to the mass media determines not only whether a novel will be offered to a large audience, but whether it will be published at all.'

It is not coincidental that the ascendency of subsidiary rights was established at the same time conglomerates began buying up pub-686- lishing, houses. Charles Newman, in The Post-Modern Aura (1985), records that

as of 1982, more than 50 percent of all mass market sales were accounted for by five publishers, and ten publishing firms accounted for more than 85 percent. Nine firms accounted for more than 50 percent of 'general interest' book sales. The largest publishers in the country are Time, Inc., Gulf and Western, M.C.A., Times Mirror, Inc., The Hearst Corp., C.B.S. and Newhouse publications, conglomerates which all have heavy stakes in massmarket entertainment media, such as radio, book clubs, cable TV, pay TV, motion pictures, video discs, and paperback books. All of them have become significant factors only in the last ten years.

Gulf and Western, which was originally a manufacturer of auto parts, now owns Paramount Pictures, Simon and Schuster, and Pocket Books; Warner Communications, a major producer of films and records and the part owner of the third-largest cable-TV system in the country, is also the owner of Warner Books and Little, Brown; MCA, the owner of Universal Pictures, is also the owner of the hardcover publishing houses G. P. Putnam's Sons, Richard Marek, and Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, and the paperback houses Berkley Publishing and Jove