The publishing business is a business

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From USA Today:

Simon & Schuster is publishing a book by Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart News right-wing provocateur, and for that has been roundly cursed by liberals, and accordingly mounted a free speech defense.

Buzzfeed published the dossier of unverified charges against soon-to-be President Trump and was roundly attacked by Trump partisans, and, as well left many journalists, to say the least, uncomfortable. The site took to the talk shows to makes its case for open information.

In a not unrelated development, Facebook, widely criticized for its willing, if unwitting, distribution of fake news, has announced new, if not particularly convincing, measures to develop ways to qualify its content.

The same question is at the heart of each of these media tempests: how much is a publisher responsible for what it publishes?

The traditional view, at least since publishing, in the late Victorian age, became a money-making and therefore respectable industry, is that if you publish it, you own it. You were not only legally responsible for it, but it firmly attached to your reputation. This led to protocols about editing, fact checking, and the development of a long cannon of journalism standards and ethics. It also led to the idea of publishing brands. What you published defined you in the community and in the marketplace.

. . . .

The Yiannopoulos book is a particularly good example of the breakdown of this view. Book imprints were once the staunchest cultural gatekeepers, with issues of taste and sales closely twinned, and with the decision to publish resting, often, on a small group of editors, or even on a single shoulder. You knew who was responsible. But then a massive consolidation of the business occurred, mixing and mashing brands, and, with new financial dictates, in essence, commoditizing books.

Any book that makes financial sense to publish, no matter its nature, will, practically speaking, be published by any publisher. Beyond a book’s financial bona fides, there is no real vetting, or editing, or concerns about taste. Most of the book industry is now a business focused on creating products—often novelty products connected to a celebrity—for specific market segments.

Link to the rest at USA Today and thanks to Andrew for the tip.

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33 thoughts on “The publishing business is a business”

  1. Half of me says “When you start making rules based on what someone is thinking you’re headed for trouble.”

    The other half of me says “This is what happens when accountants outrank editors.”

  2. “legally responsible for it”
    I do believe publishers make sure that’s not the case. Even though they keep the lion’s share of the profits, they shift the legal responsibility for content to the author.

    But, I know the routine: “Don’t worry your pretty little head over that author. We would never enforce such a clause.”

    • The author’s best defense is being judgment proof… which is based in poverty… which is usually left intact when publishing the traditional way.

      In general, I believe that aggrieved parties can sue publishers; it’s just that publishers will attempt to have the author exhaust his or her resources before they pay their first dimes.

  3. ‘Any book that makes financial sense to publish, no matter its nature, will, practically speaking, be published by any publisher.’

    Even one that’s blank, with the illustrations requiring filling in with colored ink.

    If you publish coloring books, are you a publisher?

  4. “This led to protocols about editing, fact checking, and the development of a long cannon of journalism standards and ethics.”

    i mean, if you’re gonna pick a sentence to put a spelling error in your piece, this is just about the funniest place for it.

  5. if you publish nazis, you’re a nazi publisher.

    if you publish fascists, you’re a fascist publisher.

    if you publish anything that’ll make money,
    then you are nothing but a greedy publisher.

    none of this is convoluted or complicated.

    it’s all direct and straightforward and simple.

    -bowerbird

      • i’m glad some of you had fun with my post.

        most especially felix j. torrez who along
        with allen f. constitutes the most astute
        1-2 punch in the entire e-book sphere…

        but i will reiterate that a big5 publisher
        knows quite well they are signal-boosting
        somebody they give a $250,000 contract,
        especially when they know that person is
        an emerging voice in the political arena.

        and i think it is clear this is intentional,
        as big money doesn’t bet against itself.

        to the contrary, what we usually see is that
        publishers embrace their authors and feel
        proud of the fact that they have supported
        the career arc of their writers financially,
        and propagated their message to society.

        publishers make an investment in an author.

        i certainly don’t think it’s “smug” to notice that,
        or to see that investment as an endorsement,
        one which reflects back upon that publisher.

        -bowerbird

        • You’re overthinking the matter.
          There’s no deep game or ulterior motive in BPH publishing. Its just their usual moneygrubbing. If Snookie sells dead tree pulp, they’ll publish her. If a trained seal could sell, they’d sign the seal. Flavor-of-the-week novelties are their stock in trade, regardless of the flavor.

          Check this:
          http://the-digital-reader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/C2LAumEUcAAohv2.jpg

          It’s probably a fun read but that is hardly why it saw print. It’s out there because people give them money for it. They don’t care *why* as long as they keep on doing it.

          That is all they care about, meeting their quarterlies. Everything else is posturing and hype.

          • perhaps. that’s certainly one perspective.
            and it’s one with which i generally concur.
            the business of business is to make profit.
            but that doesn’t mean business is moral.
            and it doesn’t even mean that it is amoral.
            it can be as immoral as the worst of them.

            and let us not forget that these companies
            have a very recent history of posturing as
            the guardians of society, the gatekeepers
            of quality, protecting us against mediocrity.

            i mean, we all remember that. right?

            now they wanna excuse it with “just business.”

            we heard “i was just following orders…” and
            decided that it was not an adequate defense.

            and so too with “my fiduciary responsibility”.

            if one gives a quarter of a million dollars to
            a fascist, one should man up to the action…

            -bowerbird

    • What if you publish Nazis, and Communists, and libertarians, and conservative free-marketeers, and liberals? What does that make you, O smug and infallible bowerbird?

      • ok, first, i’m not “infallible”.
        i’ve made mistakes. several times.
        just to clear that up.

        i would say if you published that wide diversity
        of political stands, you would probably fall into
        the class of “will publish anything for a profit”,
        which in my categorization above makes you
        “a greedy publisher”. (assuming you did profit.)

        but it would also make you very interesting!

        so, tom, can you point me to any publisher
        who has in fact published all of those types?
        (especially if it’s all under the same imprint!)

        -bowerbird

    • If you publish someone who is accused of being a Nazi, despite the fact that he is Jewish, gay and sleeps with black men, who is accused of being a Fascist, though he says he wants limited government and unfettered free speech, then…

      … I guess maybe you don’t refuse to publish someone based on accusations rather than facts and assume readers are grown up enough to make their own choices.

      • a jewish gay guy can be a fascist.

        even if he sleeps with black men.

        and fascists do doubletalk all day,
        so don’t trust everything they say.

        but milo has said quite enough that
        the “accusations” about what he is
        are supported by lots of evidence…

        -bowerbird

  6. The author of this piece, Michael Wolff, is letting his commas get above themselves. He needs to assert himself and show them who is boss. I haven’t seen commas rampaging like this since I last read Dickens.

  7. the idea that there is no more paper trail to who bought, edited, agreed to publish a book, is wrong. Easy to find out the names of acquisition ed, who okayed the deal, who edited, and who did cover art, who took photos, who is in charge of publicity, the names of sales reps. The accountability by name is still very alive.

    Just mention too, Harper has since forever pub’d the stuff of televilangelists and the new age, the former condemning the latter. Has forever pub’s in old Judith Reagen days, ultra right wingy stuff as well as prayers for puppies. Not new. Old. Old beyond old tactics to make moolah without precious delicate much-touted ‘curation.’ lol

    ” Book imprints were once the staunchest cultural gatekeepers, with issues of taste and sales closely twinned, and with the decision to publish resting, often, on a small group of editors, or even on a single shoulder. You knew who was responsible. But then a massive consolidation of the business occurred, mixing and mashing brands, and, with new financial dictates, in essence, commoditizing books.”

    • Yes.The idea that no one knows who did what anymore because of the merger is ridiculous. And I’m sure there are plenty of examples of money-making books in questionable taste published by trad pub over lo these many decades, if we cared to look.
      And books have been a commodity since Gutenberg’s little idea caught on. This ‘once upon a time in publishing, there was impeccable taste, and the staunchest of gate-keeping, and yea verily did the decision to publish well ride upon the strong shoulders of a single man’ is getting old fast.
      People have been complaining about other people publishing crap and how they ought to be stopped since the printing press was invented.

      • youre right Teri. The tracking of who does what guides a lot of writers to target certain people in publishing with their mss, and also of course, one can track the trends tied to each acquisition editor so one can aim better. Also I like your ‘scripture’ it made me verily smile. Thanks.

  8. USA Today seems to be a bit slow on the uptake if they’re just now noticing it. The ‘we will print whatever we think will sell’ has been with us for a while and will only get worse as trad-pub searches high and low for the next mars/50shades.

    “The traditional view, at least since publishing, in the late Victorian age, became a money-making and therefore respectable industry, is that if you publish it, you own it. You were not only legally responsible for it, but it firmly attached to your reputation. This led to protocols about editing, fact checking, and the development of a long cannon of journalism standards and ethics.”

    Sorry guys/gals, but I think most of that also died in the ‘late Victorian age’.

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