Returning to my working paper, ”Thinking Thru the Future of Publishing” from 50 years ago, I’ll admit much of the material will be ancient history for many readers, but it does reflect some trends that have been amplifying in the aftermath. And don’t laugh at the prices mentioned. Hey, I was still typing away on my IBM Selectric at work and my Olivetti Editor 2 at home – typewriters of the advanced electric sort, kiddos!

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As I wrote then:

There has been a growing situation in recent years concerning the DISTRIBUTION end of circulating ideas. I have seen this in three major areas, as a kind of illustration:

• Film
• Publishing
• Music

We have read of the problem of film directors who have objected to the mutilations imposed by film distributors. Furthermore, many of the directors have voiced opposition to the distributors’ claim that most films are not profitable (there is, for example, a wide discrepancy between the figures given to the producers & directors of a film & the figures given to Variety and other trade publications concerning the actual box office receipts of a given film). So the producers/directors of a film are faced with two problems: getting their film into theaters outside of NYC & a few other large cities, & getting an honest accounting of the return on their investment (artistic & financial).

In music — especially popular music — the situation is much the same. Fewer & fewer broadcasters are playing recordings that are not on the Top 40 — or, increasingly, the top 20 or 30. This means that new groups have little chance of being heard. If they aren’t heard, it is difficult for their records to sell. If their records don’t sell, it is even harder for them to be heard.

In publishing, what is happening is this: more & more publishing houses are becoming parts of large conglomerates, many of which own two or more of the biggest houses. CBS & ITT, for example, have both bought heavily into the established publishing concerns. Their corporate outlook is rarely literary.

As a case in point, when no one else would buy the rights to LBJ’s memoires, one of CBS’ publishing subsidiaries offered a million and a half though the books produced less than $10,000 net return for the company — it seems that LBJ was a good friend of Wm Paley or Frank Stanton, the CBS chiefs, & they didn’t want their friend to be embarrassed by the low offers on his book. But who really paid for this business mistake? Not CBS. The loss undoubtedly came from those underpaid writers who are constantly told that their books don’t make very much from their publishers & who somehow keep working on, despite modest royalties of $500 or so for their novels or investigations.

What happens, then, is that the publishing field is becoming increasingly congested; the turnover of editors at the large houses is reported to be terrible, because the new owners do not & cannot know what their long-term goals are.

The other thing that happens is that, to “maximize profits.” the willingness of houses to experiment, to publish unknown authors, to publish a wide range of work — or to edit sharply — is diminished. Traditionally, publishing houses reflected the tastes or skills of one or two editors. A few volumes would be published each year, for a range of literate readers.

I’m not sure this is the case anymore, esp. with publishing costs the way they are & THE CORPORATE DEMAND FOR PROFIT.

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Returning to the threesome of music, film, & publishing, the big bottleneck appeared to be in the distribution end. Either the artist makes it big, or he doesn’t make it at all. Regional markets in all three have evaporated, altho I have reason to believe that they latently remain.

VO’s books were rejected by big houses because the publishers didn’t think the books would pass the 5,000-circulation point.

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The biggest mark-up in a work of art comes at the circulation level. For books, one-quarter to one-third often goes to the retailer. I’m not sure of what the wholesaler gets, but I do know that the author’s royalty is one of the smallest cuts in the entire cost pie.

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In finally publishing the Intellectual Crisis, VO found that the actual cost of publication was less than one dollar a copy, paperback. However, it should be noted that the volume was put out by a university publisher & may have been done at a cost much lower than by going commercial rate. (IU Publications, by the way, charges about half what any commercial printer would demand.)

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Having thought thru this far, I came upon the editor’s comments recent copy of New Letters in the IU periodicals room. He was discussing J.D. Salinger’s recent protest of the republication of a number of his early short stories, which he did not want to see in general circulation & for which he was receiving no compensation: it was purely the publisher’s profit.

The editor noted that University Microfilms, a Xerox subsidiary, has been illicitly selling microfilms of his own magazine. In fact, he was unable to sell mint sets of early editions of his magazine, because many libraries preferred the microfilm version.

The editor was also republishing some of the writings from the early editions of his magazine, when he received a notice from one large publishing house that he had violated their copyright, even though his magazine had on the work & had published it first. On the other hand, the editor noted that attempts on his part to protect copyrights held by his journal went unheeded by the large corporations.

He noted the frequent plagiarism of small magazines & publishers by the large corporations without any compensation to the little workers who feed them.

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The editor also commented on receiving photocopies of MS from submitters. He lamented the passing of the “personal relationship” between editors & writers, as they used to read the precious typed copies.

But he neglected to mention the high rate of rejection slips sent to writers, who usually submitted at their own cost, with their own self-addressed stamped envelopes, and their own precious time repaid in two or three “free” copies of the journal if successful. All in the name of “building a name.”

At 60 cents a page for typists — or the difficulty of constantly retyping pages for resubmission — the “cost” to the author becomes prohibitive. (The U.S. Postal Service has a magnificent way of mangling MSS in the mail, so that they are returned thoroughly mangled.) Because the odds are so heavily against the writer in terms of acceptance & cost, it pays him to invest five or ten cents for a photocopy, mail that, & keep the master form in case he needs to make additional copies for later submission.

The tradeoff? Technology that hurts royalties can also save labor.

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But the editor complained about the smell of photocopies vs. the good feel of typescript & paper. Ah! The literary life!

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Some editors refuse to read the Xerox copies (or, worse yet, the rubbery, ammoniated imitations), altho more & more writers are submitting Xeroxes. But some writers, knowing the long time lags & heavy rejection rate inherent in the academic/artsy publishing world, use the photocopies as a means of submitting simultaneously to many journals. Hence, the editors are leery of photocopies since they may get stuck setting a piece only to have the author pull the entry in favor of a better offer from another journal. (One way to overcome this is in the proper wording in a decent cover letter, perhaps. Or maybe actual compensation of a competitive nature.)

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New technologies cut two ways: they can increase means to circulate material (a people’s access), but they can also reduce ways to govern compensation to the creators. Especially when we get to the ease of pirate tape recordings, videotape films, or Xerox copies of published work.

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Wow, this does take me back in time. See how it develops in next week’s installment.

You can find my works in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain them.