| ‘Private publishing’ generally
connotes an activity of a desperate second-rate author: a last-ditch expedient
when he cannot place his book. He might pay a vanity press to publish it
for him, or guarantee a conventional publisher against loss; or he might
turn publisher himself, deal direct with a printer, and hawk the result round
the bookshops. The term is also used, certainly, to describe the activities
of a private individual who sets up as a publisher of other people’s books
– a far more positive undertaking. But ‘one-man publishing’ avoids the ambiguity. Many books can be as successfully issued under a personal imprint as by a large organisation, and some more so. An individual can be innovative where an established firm will prefer to play safe and repeat a known formula: he has less to risk and more to gain by offering a distinctive product. With his lower overheads he can make money out of smaller runs, and so issue worthwhile books of restricted interest which otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. By controlling all aspects of publication, from commissioning right through to sales, he can bring a coherence and commitment to the process as a whole that are bound to be hard to achieve when the labour is divided. And no enormous expertise is needed. The professional mystique of publishing conceals a largely commonsensical activity which any intelligent entrepreneur with a little spare time can reasonably attempt. The one-man publisher’s weak point is sales and marketing. It is too expensive and too time-consuming to take a single book, or a small list, to bookshops in all parts of the country on a regular basis. So the first test to be applied in choosing a book to take on is usually ’Is there a readily identifiable market, easy to reach by mail-order?’ This constraint, in my experience, leaves room for a surprisingly wide range of subjects. Mail-order is easy to arrange by circulating leaflets or by advertising in specialist publications. It makes for cheaper books, by eliminating booksellers’ discount. It solves the problem of having little or no capital, since one can make payment in advance a condition of supply, and so accumulate enough to pay the printer by the time his bill falls due. And in many cases a higher proportion of the potential market will respond to the opportunity to order by post than will make the effort to visit a bookshop. Most publishers, anxious to retain the services and goodwill of bookshops, are reluctant to use mail-order, and so they may do worse than an individual with a book well suited to this mode of distribution. Another sort of book a one-man publisher can make a success of is one of predominantly local interest. Here the bookshops will need to be brought in, but it is no great labour to keep a few local shops stocked single-handed. Sales to local residents, and in the summer months to tourists, can be remarkable. My most interesting publication from the production point of view, a medical handbook, has also been the most successful and well illustrates some of the freedoms one-man publishing brings. Alternate pages are blank for the addition of local and personal notes: the equivalent device of interleaving, once common, has now all but disappeared, thanks to the price of paper. The book’s brevity and cheap production, contasting with the medical world’s normal glossy fare, make it painlessly expendable as new editions appear. Finally its spiral binding allows it to lie flat for consultation when both hands are busy. Many publishers will not use this kind of binding because of the hostility of booksellers: when shelved spine-outwards the spiral-bound book is not readily identifiable. At a time when publishers are being especially cautious in their investment, the frustration of authors whose books do not have quite enough commercial promise to merit conventional publication must be running unusually high. But in the photolithographic age the one-man publisher (and the species is multiplying rapidly) can often help. And if even he fails you, why not do it yourself? |