The Influence of Publishers

Posted 31 August, 2007 in Publishing |

Writing in the Huffington Post, Lissa Warren questions whether the general public knows or even cares about who publishes what when they are choosing books:

I don’t think the general consumer cares very much who is published by whom. I don’t even think most people notice. Tell me the last time you walked into a Borders, or a B&N, or your local independent and said, “Hmm, wonder what Simon & Schuster has been up to this week?” The companies just don’t matter.

Untrue, Ms. Warren. So very, very untrue.

It may be the case that the average reader is unable to name the publisher of their favourite book off the top of their heads,* or to name the publisher of the book they’re currently reading,** but that doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter to them, or that they have no impact on the choices readers make.

The most obvious example of how a publisher or an imprint drives readers involves genre books. A lover of mysteries will likely be well acquainted with The Mysterious Press or Castle Street Mysteries, and a sci-fi aficionado will be similarly well acquainted with TOR and Del Rey. These are publishers who specialize in catering to a particular market and the audience for these books will come to recognize the authors who are published under these respective imprints, whether or not they (the readers) are conscious of the imprints themselves.

Other houses have built their reputations on literary fare, and often have storied histories. Anansi is the house that first published Ondaatjee and Atwood; it is currently known as a publisher of quality literary fiction and poetry. And not just within the publishing industry either: two Giller nominations and eight Governor General’s Award nominations in 2006 increased their visibility among general book-buyers who were looking for quality fiction or award nominees.

And I’d bet that you’d be hard pressed to find a Canadian reader who is unaware of McClelland & Stewart’s reputation as “the Canadian publisher,” even if (s)he could not name a single author on M&S’s fall list. Similarly, Penguin Classics and the New Canadian Library are instantly recognizable to any reader looking for classic fiction, or to any university student.

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival is screening a documentary called Obscene, about Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press in the States, who was responsible for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch, and Waiting for Godot, among others. While general readers may not know or care about who Barney Rosset is, most will be instantly familiar with the books his company published.

Then there is the behind-the-scenes influence that publishers wield, which is less obvious, but no less important. The bigger houses have access to larger marketing budgets, can pay for co-op and placement in stores, and thus have a better chance of getting their books into the hands of readers. Those readers may not know Knopf from Doubleday (as though there’s all that much difference to begin with — Baa-zing!), but they are influenced by the publishing decisions these houses make nonetheless. When Michael Winter leaves Anansi to go to Penguin, or Russell Smith abandons Porcupine’s Quill for Doubleday, it is significant, in large part because of the expanded readership that the larger houses can tap into. The increased visibility will bring these authors to the attention of more people than would otherwise be the case; this in turn drives reading patterns and habits.

Moreover, it is often the larger houses that get their books reviewed in major newspapers and magazines. Review editors who have a limited amount of space to work with will want to devote much of that space to the most significant books in a given season. Who determines what is significant? The publishers, by what they choose to highlight as frontlist material, versus what they choose to bury in the wasteland of the midlist. Again, readers may not be aware that this is going on; that in no way means that they are not affected by it.

Readers may not care who publishes whom, but to say that “[t]he companies don’t matter” is just plain wrong.

P.S. re: Daniel Green’s assertion that “eventually, whether a book is published on paper between covers by a ‘publishing company’ or on paper between covers by the author through a ‘publishing service’ won’t matter either.” Quick, name the last self-published book you read. Gotcha, didn’t I?

*And, by the way, in answer to Warren’s questions in her article’s lede: Wise Blood, The Noonday Press. And no, I didn’t have to go to the shelf to look this up.

**On the Road, Penguin Modern Classics. Ditto.

1 comment to “The Influence of Publishers”

August, August 31st, 2007 at 3:01 pm:

• I think I’m going to have to both agree and disagree with you. Obviously the publisher has an impact on the reader, and the publishers do matter, but that they “matter” almost exclusively because of the behind the scenes stuff you mention. And not only does most of that stuff not register at all on Joe Public, but I’d wager that even if it did, Joe Public wouldn’t give a damn so long as they were able to find the latest book from their favourite author.

  I think there are only a handful of publishing houses right now for whom brand recognition is a genuine factor as far as their impact on the reading public is concerned (aside from genre publishers, where I think you’re dead on), and most of those are smaller houses with reasonably specialist offerings.

  McSweeney’s, I think, has huge brand recognition, but I think it has as much to do with their design sense and Eggers’ personal notoriety as it does with the books they put out (and that journal, that becomes less interesting every time they publish another piece by Roddy Doyle or Joyce Carol Oates–I used to go to them for quirky writers I hadn’t heard of, not for yet another dull ramble from folks who have already published more books than the world reasonably needed from them).

  House of Anansi have Atwood and Ondaatje (ugh) going for them, but they also get more than their fair share of press from the CBC, and are actually pretty good at marketing. However my mother, who reads nearly as much and as widely as I do (falling behind this year, though) hadn’t heard of them until I started talking up Sheila Heti’s first book a few years back. My father, and equally voracious reader, wouldn’t know a House of Anansi book if I threw one at him.

  McClelland and Stewart is certainly “that Canadian press”, but I bet neither of my parents could name a single author in their stable (and I know that I tend to recognize M&S mostly because when I see a book by a known Canadian author that’s neither as ugly what the Porcupine’s Quill produces, nor as beautiful as what Anansi produces, it’s almost guaranteed to be them because there’s nobody left with the same kind of catalogue).

  And everybody knows Penguin, because let’s face it, they run great campaigns, have a good design sense, and they are everywhere, publishing nearly everyone that people have convinced themselves they “should” read.

  Now, I’ve been an avid reader all my life, but even my limited knowledge of who is publishing what didn’t come about until I was in school studying literature and approaching things as an academic, trying to figure out why I shouldn’t be reading the Wordsworth Classics edition of Dickens (aside from the terrible typesetting). Had I stayed only a dedicated but non-fanatical reader, I too would probably have remained ignorant of who was publishing what I read.

  Oh yeah (no going to the shelf):

  *The Biographer’s Tale, Vintage International
  **The Bell, Penguin Books

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