There is a clear and concise chapter on English versification in Nichol’s English Composition (see p. 44).
Chapter VIII
The Business Side of Books
The Beginning of Business.
When the book is written the troubles of the author are nearly over, but the troubles of the merchant with a piece of merchandise to sell are about to begin. Let the aspirant recognise clearly that the remainder of his enterprise is not artistic but commercial. Let him grasp the fact that he is going forth to encounter men of business on their own ground, and that it therefore behoves him to act like a man of business and not like a man of genius.
He should see that the typewritten copy is accurate, and that the sheets are fastened together in such a manner as to be easily handled and read by a person sitting in an arm-chair. His name and address, the title and description of the manuscript, and the length of the manuscript in words, should all be prominent on the first leaf, and the bundle as a whole should look smart, fresh, and attractive.
In selecting publishers for experiment, the aspirant should begin with the best and work downwards in the scale of importance. The best publisher is usually the publisher who publishes the works of the best authors. But of course he must select a suitable publisher; he can acquire information as to the suitability of publishers by studying the advertisement columns of the Athenaeum, the Publishers' Circular, or other literary papers. From the character of the lists of the various firms there displayed, he will be able to form an idea which firm is likely to suit him best Having decided that point he should despatch his manuscript to the chosen firm with the briefest possible letter. Under ordinary circumstances this letter should contain nothing but the offer of the manuscript with a view to publication and a request for its return in case of refusal. Of course it may happen that some explanation of the manuscript is necessary; if so, the explanation should be quite short All minor explanations, all suggestions about terms and so forth, should be left to a later stage of the negotiations. The beginner sometimes has a foolish trick of stating in full what terms he is prepared to accept from a publisher.
Publishers and their “Readers.”
It is almost certain that the manuscript will be refused by the first publisher to whom it is submitted. The beginner must not be discouraged, but must send it on to another firm and continue to send it on to other and still other firms until either it is accepted or he has lost faith in it. There are about seventy reputable firms of general publishers, and the fact that a manuscript has been declined by ten out of this seventy is by no means an absolute proof, though it may justify a presumption, that the remaining sixty will also decline it The beginner should despatch the manuscript as long as he believes in its worth. Many manuscripts have been refused by all the best firms and then successfully issued by a second-rate firm. An element of chance or “flukiness” must of necessity enter into the question of the acceptance or rejection of any given manuscript by any given firm. Publishers are human, and their “readers,” or literary advisers, are very human. I speak feelingly, for I have been a publisher’s reader. Consider what happens to your manuscript when it enters the publisher’s office. In the first place, it is a mere item in a crowd, for a firm will receive perhaps twenty unsolicited manuscripts a week; a clerk coldly enters particulars of it in a book, and it is shoved aside with other manuscripts to await the casual inspection of a partner or manager. In the second place, that partner or manager, being human, will probably allow the pile of manuscript to accumulate until it looks formidable. He will then approach his task with fear and dislike; he will perhaps unduly hurry through his task. It is wrong for him to do so; it is bad policy for him to do so; but he is human; he is not an unerring, unresting, unhasting machine of literary discrimination; perhaps he has bought a horse and wishes to get home early in order to try it You may think that such trifles ought not to affect the chances of your manuscript with an eminent firm of publishers. They ought not, but they do. Well, the turn of your manuscript comes; the great man glances at it; he does not know your name, and since nineteen manuscripts out of twenty by unknown authors are worthless, he naturally begins with a melancholy apprehension that yours is worthless. He hopes there is something in it, but he is afraid there is nothing in it. The merest detail may fatally influence him in those crucial moments. Remember that the great man is not reading your work; he is only tasting it to decide whether it is good enough to send to his reader. A single dull page, a sentence, a phrase, an unconscious irritation of one of his thousand susceptibilities, may ultimately cause him to cast your manuscript on the left, among the goats.
But I will suppose that he is vaguely impressed by your manuscript, and that he sends it to Mr. So-and-So for a detailed opinion. Now Mr. So-and-So has also been born in sin. He is a creature of highly educated taste, of honourable impulses; but he is mortal. He is either paid by a fixed salary or by a fee per manuscript; and in either case he wants to spend as little time on your work as is consistent with his duty. Reading books in typescript is not an agreeable occupation, and the fact that Mr. So-and-So passes many hours per week in that occupation does not make it the less disagreeable to him. In a word, Mr. So-and-So is rather bored by the prospect of reading your book. By a piece of thoughtlessness you may put him in a bad humour at the very start As he settles into an easy chair, and glances at the clock, and faces the task, the walls of his study may hear him exclaim: “I wish these confounded amateurs would employ decent typewriters!” or “Why can’t they pin their sheets together decently?” or “Spilt infinitives all over the place!” or “Fancy beginning right off with a thundering coincidence!”
Even if the reader gets interested in your stuff and actually thinks that it is good, he may decide against it on the ground that it will not be popular. Publishing firms flourish by making profits; and profits are made out of books that sell; and it is the business of the reader to recommend not good books merely, but good books that will sell. When a reader recommends his firm to publish a book, and the publication results in a loss of fifty pounds, the reader loses fifty pounds’ worth of reputation; and if this unsatisfactory phenomenon occurs once too often, he loses the whole of his reputation and his situation also. Therefore, when he likes a manuscript but fears for its popularity, he thinks first of his reputation and his situation. Being a child of Adam, he prefers to run the risk of refusing a good book than to run the risk of compromising his reputation and exposing his employers to monetary loss.
The vast majority of readers’ reports are either unfavourable, or favourable in a halfhearted, cautious way. Not once in a hundred times does a reader recommend a book with enthusiasm. Readers, when they like a book, are disposed to say, in effect: “This book isn’t half bad. On the other hand it isn’t brilliant. The author may do better. On the other hand he may not. It doesn’t really matter much whether you publish the thing or not I won’t prophesy a good sale, but on the whole I should be disposed to say that you would not be ill-advised in publishing it."
I will suppose that the reader has sent in such a report about your work. The report will probably annoy the publisher, who will remark satirically: “I wish these alleged experts of ours would make up their minds one way or the other! What do we pay them for?” If his lists are fairly full, he may unceremoniously decide against the book, despite the reader’s mild approval of it. But vacancies in his list, or some attractive phrase in the reader’s report, may induce him either to read the book himself or to submit it to another reader. In which case the martyrised manuscript has to undergo still another and perhaps more fearful ordeal.
Here I will quote from a letter written by one of the foremost publishers in London:—
“I generally take very great