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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 9, No. 7 June 19, 1946

Monopoly in Publishing

Monopoly in Publishing

Why have the fat serial novels and the family sets of "Works" of the days of Dickens and Thackeray gone so completely out of fashion? Where are the family magazines of Victorian days? And the "Gentlemen's Libraries"?

The reasons are to be found, not in the experiments of form-conscious artists, nor indeed in a basic change of approach on the part of writers, but in the history of book-publishing.

The Victorian novelists grew fat, on the income from serial publication in family magazines. Following magazine appearance their books were published in several-volume editions for the family bookshelves. But at the turn of the century the new mass circulation methods, and in particular the popular lending library, which had only been frequented by servant girls in the days of Victoria, caused the book audience to turn away from the three-volume novel to the more conveniently rentable single-volume novel. At the same time the development of display advertisement had a decisive influence on the future of the magazine. Previously "magazines had depended for their support on a subscription audience able to impose a consumer taste control by their payment of a relatively high price for their reading." But now magazine publishers found it much more profitable to print mass circulation magazines, the design and content of which was determined by their new financial mainstay—the advertiser. The advertiser-subsidised magazine was addressed to the passions and weaknesses of people, imposed its own norms of taste.

The serious writer, naturally enough, old not wish to drop to this level, and so we find, among the other reactions to the growth of the display magazine, the little magazine coming forward. In many cases it became over-individualised and obscure, proud of its small circulation.

Put consumer taste has remained a factor in the publishing of books, often to the disgust of the publisher. His desire has been, and remains, to standardise taste, and thus assure profit. And this desire he has done his beat to realise, and not indeed without some measure of success. It is, of course, to America that we must look to see this process in action, for it is there that the Book Clubs, the prior movie options on novels, are in full swing. There book publishing has developed along similar lines to the steel industry. Just as the steel trusts not only own the blast furnaces but also the mines, the conversion factories, the distributing networks, so the big publishing firms have their own printing works, reprint factories, binderies, book store chains and book clubs. Doubleday Doran, for example, owns three book clubs, one of which—the Literary Guild—is the largest in the field.

What are the specific dangers or these instruments of monopoly?

The first is the threat to cultural standards, which are rapidly being levelled, as has already happened in the newspaper and magazine fields. The first factor in this is the choice of judges for the book clubs. They are presumably picked as a guarantee that good taste will be preserved, but they are more and more being chosen from those writers who display "market" sense. Thus the two new judges of the Book of the Month Club are "the suave, best-selling novelist John [unclear] Marquand ("H. M. Pulham, Esq.) and that arbiter of the fashionable in literature, [unclear: Clifton] P. Fadiman." But while good tastes is the supposed appeal, the more effective economically determining appeal is the bargain. By various devices the book clubs offer their wares at prices below those possible in the open market. People are thus gradually persuaded to forego personal choice and accept what is offered.

The second danger is the threat to the freedom of book publication, because the very concentrations of book audiences made possible by the book clubs have made them readily accessible to ruling class pressures. The first control of course is through the judges, although it is not suggested that they are given, or would obey, direct instructions. But the basis of their selection has already been noted, and a further point is that besides their market sense they also bring in cynical attitudes towards political thinking (see Marquand's "So Little Time"). But the major and most continuous pressure is against "Ideas" altogether. Thinking is increasingly shunned as "controversial." The Literary Guild, for example, has virtually restricted itself to straight fiction, which depends to a minimal extent on any conflict of ideas.

It is noticeable, further, that just as magazine publishers gradually came to regard the advertiser as the most important consideration, so the book publishers are coming to regard the book club as of primary importance.

A characteristic feature of the growth of monopoly is no less present than in other fields. Take the Literary Guild, for example. "Its owners, Doubleday, Doran & Co., are reported to have bought out a medical book publishing house. Using its paper allotment, the company is said to have expanded its book club. The Literary Guild, while its competitors were held back by the existing restrictions. The fact that much-needed medical textbooks were thereby kept out of print did not seem to press on anybody's con-science."

What can be done about it? The long-term and only satisfactory answer is socialism, the direction of culture by the people, and not by their exploiters. But in the meantime the only temporary answer is to use the same devices for progressive ends, to maintain progressive book clubs at the same time as co-operative book-shops. The way has been shown by the Left Book Club in England and by the Book Find Club in the United States.

(The above is mainly a precis of an article by Isidor Schneider in New Masses.)