AUTHOR, AGENT, AND PUBLISHER

BY ONE OF THE TRADE'

We know of no fiercer attack on any body of men in recent times than that being made just now by the Council of the Authors' Society on publishers. The unlimited abuse and accusations now being hurled at the heads of the unfortunate members of 'the trade' are indeed appalling. It must be galling to the attackers that their enemies have pursued the even tenor of their way so far without deigning to give their opposers the satisfaction of a reply. The charges, however, are becoming so violent and so continuous, that it will soon be necessary for publishers to take up the matter seriously.

The Authors' Society was founded only a few years ago, and became an immediate success. The idea of being able for a small sum per annum to put a few initials after their names, and obtain a sort of license to call themselves authors, tickled many hundreds of amateurs, and subscriptions from all parts of the country flowed in freely. The promoters, equal to the emergency of being taken seriously, banded themselves together, forming a council, of which some of the members have actually had manuscripts published. Very soon the society found out that all publishers were extortioners; and, to illustrate their discovery, produced a pleasant little romance entitled Cost of Production. The agreements of some favourite authors were examined, and the royalties on their works were, with the assistance of the agent, run up from twelve and a half and fifteen per cent. to twenty and twenty-five per cent. The publishers, finding it necessary to have one or two of the last boomed' to decorate their lists, submit for the sake of advertisement to this, but they run the 'great one's' books at a loss. Mark the impending result, however. The commonplace member of the Society who has been accustomed to get a decent price for his book will soon have to be docked of a considerable portion of it by the publisher, to enable him to meet the 'unbridled greediness' of the popular man, and to help the Council to break a fresh royalty record with their latest favourite.

The mediocre writer cannot dictate his terms, and indeed is, as a rule, only too glad to accept what the publisher offers him. The

heads of the Council do a grave wrong to their poorer brethren in planning these ever-extending royalties, and it is high time the matter were taken out of their hands and adjusted on a fairer basis. It will be much less demoralising, too, for the authors who command large sales. It is common knowledge to all readers of fiction that several of our popular writers, who have recently been logrolled into popularity and who were unknown to the public three or four years ago, have already written themselves dry. The good old time when a novel a year was considered fairly rapid production is now gone, and the hunger for money makes a writer, as soon as he strikes a new vein, work it for all it is worth-a commendable proceeding in a tradesman, but one showing a lack of dignity in a man of letters. The instant a hit is made, all the old stories which have been declined (probably very deservedly) by editors and publishers are brought from the lumber room and exchanged for cheques which would have made Dickens, Thackeray, and even Sir Walter Scott open their eyes. Not only is this the case with his present and past work, but his future is mortgaged for years to come for books of which the author has not even a title, these being known in the agreement as, say, the September 1905-92,000 word story.'

This wretched system emasculates the man who has made a name by giving him too much money and too little time, and disheartens the man without a name by not giving him a living wage for his work. There has always been sufficient competition amongst publishers to keep authors' remunerations up to a fair standard, and the shriekings of the Society in this cause are unnecessary; indeed, it is curious to note that, in spite of all their efforts, they have not succeeded in forcing the percentage up to that given by the publishers of their own free will to George Eliot for some of her works, although this, of course, was in the three-volume novel days. The Society has utterly destroyed the old friendship between authors and publishers which was so pleasant in the days of the first and second Murrays. It has introduced that parasite, the literary agent,' who has the Society's especial blessing; and it is becoming an uncommon thing now for the author ever to have met the publisher of his book, that is, when the man is big enough to have been taken under the wings of the Society and the agent. Those meetings and friendships which up to the founding of the Society were so beneficial to the author, giving him in a friendly talk the guidance and help which many years of publishing bring, and keeping him in touch with the practical part of the trade, are now quite abolished, so far as the 'popular' author is concerned. They were pleasant to the publisher, giving him as they did a personal sympathy and interest in the book, and a friendship with the writer. For these meetings have now been substituted typed agreements from the agent.

Fortunately there are yet some left connected with literature who

are glad to have the advice and counsel the publisher is always glad to give, and it is well for the honour of the profession of letters that it is not left wholly to the self-advertising gentlemen who are continually airing their opinions in the daily press. It may surprise them to learn that there are yet authors who take more than a commercial interest in their work.

It is curious to note that in the many lucubrations which issue from the Society their minds carry no further than Fiction.' To judge from their outbursts one would think there were no such things as History, Travel, Theology, Philosophy, and Science, for the sixshilling novel seems the limit of their horizon. In their haste to denounce the publishers, they forget that literature is indebted to that body of men and not to authors for the planning of such works as the Dictionary of National Biography, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the numerous libraries' and 'series' which may be found in every public library. Members of the Council might have to confess, too, that had not some exceedingly speculative expeditions been generously and ably financed by publishers, there would have been several important works of science and travel less in last year's publishing lists.

The agent is an unpleasant excrescence on literature, and one who is doing it incalculable harm. He is of recent growth; indeed, he was almost unknown five years ago. His is a cheap and easy business, all the stock required being unbounded impudence, pen, ink, and paper, and a small office. He sits in his room and scans the literary papers eagerly, and when he sees a new book run into its second or third edition he immediately devotes his attention to the author thereof.

6

The publisher has perhaps discovered that author after weary search through many hundreds of manuscripts. He has noted that the man is promising, and, having asked him round to his office, makes him an offer of forty or fifty pounds on account of a ten per cent. royalty an offer which the author eagerly accepts. The publisher determines that the book and the man are worth some advertising and resolves to spend two or three hundred pounds on them. By dint of paragraphing ' in the public press, constant advertising in all the publishers' columns, and oft-repeated pressure, both by post and by travellers, of a thousand or two booksellers throughout the kingdom, with whom he has communications, he manages to dispose of, say, a couple of thousand copies, but the book shows a loss to him, because of the heavy travelling and advertising expenses. He fondly hopes, therefore, that a new book by the same author may bring him level on the deal.' This is the advantageous moment for the agent to step in. He writes to the author, saying he can get him an extra five or seven and a half per cent. royalty. He has no more idea than the man in the moon what publisher will give this, but he is aware that he has only to take the manuscript to any

young firm which is anxious to have a name that has been well advertised on their list, to get the necessary promise at once. The author in nine cases out of ten bites. The young firm publish the work, but owing to their having insufficient experience and trade connection it falls flat, and the result is a loss to both author and publisher. We have no hesitation in saying that this is a sample of dozens of cases which have occurred during the last two or three years. When an author has really a touch of genius in him the case is often quite pitiable. If his manuscripts (in spite of being hawked about to all and sundry by the agent) sell on publication, the agent measures his victim up, and proposes a little plan for their mutual advantage. Experience has taught the middleman that the taste in fiction is variable. So, having received the author's consent, he sets forth round the trade and makes contracts for stories for the unfortunate man well into the next century. He then goes round magazine editors and repeats the operation. At the end of this business the author finds himself turned into a fiction mill with contracts staring him in the eyes for three or four novels a year, for the next, say, five years. He thinks nervously of the book that brought him before the public, and which took him the ten best years of his life to write, but, with the terror of the law in his eyes, he sits down and produces-well, some of the later volumes of a well-known clique will illustrate our meaning. This is what the agent does for literature, and he is the man the society of authors extols. It is indeed sad to see writers of genius, who, had they been allowed their own time, could have produced works which would have delighted posterity, writing themselves to rags to keep their contracts. The mere fact of being bound down to produce so much work in so much. time has been on several occasions sufficient to utterly wreck the nerves of sensitive writers, and some publishers have on their files. at present shockingly pathetic letters from literary men, imploring for freedom from contracts which the agent has made for them. They know too well that, if they sued for this through their agent, an immediate action for breach of contract would be the answer. The demoralising effect which this middleman has upon authors may be better understood, when it is known to what depth of literary indecency the agent can bring them.

What he wants is the biggest cheque possible for the author, as his commission is of course in proportion, and he would with pleasure sell Swinburne's latest poem to the editor of the *** provided that worthy could outbid his fellow editors. Fortunately the author without a name is free from this parasite, as of course no publisher would think of even opening a manuscript by an unknown man which came through such a source. One may ask, why does the publisher not refuse to make any contract through the agent? The reply is simple. It is absolutely essential to the go-a-head publisher

to have the advertisement a popular writer gives him, and he can only at present do this through the agent.

When he receives the agent's demands, he calculates what the advertisement is worth to him; he rarely dares to take the contingency of making a profit on such a book into consideration. He sells so many thousands of the book, and has his advertisement. If his ledgers balance at the end of it, he considers himself lucky.

Should the book sell beyond his anticipations he becomes frightened, for he is having too expensive an advertisement, and, after all the cost of putting many thousands of volumes on the market, he may find himself with a balance on the wrong side, which gets worse with each extra copy sold. He could, of course, continue the publication with an easy mind, if he deducted the money he loses on the great one's' book from the remunerations of the less well-known writers, who have to take what is offered them. But this system of robbing the poor to pay the rich is one that goes against the grain, although the Council have done their best to encourage it.

To the publisher's honour be it said, too, that the obvious way of making the bookseller suffer for the author's rapacity by reducing or taking away his discounts has never been resorted to.

There is no doubt that the bold and manly protest against the greed of the last boomed, made by Mr. Edmund Gosse at the recent Booksellers' Dinner, will do an immense amount of good to the poorer wielders of the pen.

Such a charge coming, not from one of the trade, but from an eminent literary man, could not have been anything but disinterested. Although it has at present subjected him to the revilings of the Authors' Society, yet there will come a time when not only publishers but authors and the public will thank him for his fearless condemnation of what would, unless checked, prove a serious danger to literature.

Mr. Hall Caine has found out that the publisher is unnecessary. Why cannot the author go direct to the printer, without such an expensive intermediary? He is bold enough to go into figures, and gives the cost price of the 6s. novel as 1s. As he has omitted the somewhat important item of paper, the trade will examine with interest hist next book to see what costless substitute he has invented. Of course such small items as advertising (from sixpence to a shilling a copy), a staff of experienced clerks, five or six travellers, offices in London and New York, and perhaps Melbourne, rent, taxes, warehousing, bad debts, &c., are beneath the notice of a literary man. Yet he will find such items mount up when he begins his new venture. We have heard of a certain Sir Walter Scott-Ballantyne partnership on the lines he indicates, and much profitable pleasure did it give to the bankruptcy receivers of those days. Was there not, too, only last