NOVELISTS’ PROFITS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4425, 3 August 1901, Page 2

NOVELISTS’ PROFITS.

THE FUTCEE OF ENGLISH AUTHORSHIP. (By Dr Robertson Nicoll, in the "Daily Mail.”) If we aro to believe what we read, the future of the English novelist is threatened by American competition. American novelists are catering for the American public, and the sales of their books me unprecedented. , . Few among recent English noveis have had a great sale in America. It is reported that a member of the firm ot Hoiper Brothers has expressed his conviction that English authors, and, indeed, authors everywhere, will have to send then books to America, which will become the great centre of the world’s publishing trade. I have been asked to say something about the future of the English novelist in view of what has happened, and what is going to happen. FORTY MAKE A LIVING WAGE. There is nothing so helpful in anticipating tho future as to know the present ae curately. I have made a very careful estimate of living English novelists, and the tacts aro somewhat startling. At the outset there are not more than forty novelists in this country who can live in a reasonable way on the profits of their books alone. The serial market, however, is very large, and this makes tin* very sucoesstul novelist moderately ricu, and provides for some who otherwise could not live by fiction. I calculate that there eighty-five novelists who can live by what they receive from the publication of their books as seriais, as well us in volume form. Then there are a good many people who occasionally write novels with more or less financial success, who do not derive the whole of their incomes from this source. Often they are journalists, sometimes dramatists, sometimes the> ■ have independent incomes, and in a few instances they are professional men. . So it is obvious that even if American competition does swamp the novelists trade in this country, the number of per■ons affected will ha very few. I come to ask what number of these novelists receive an important part of -heir incomes from America? I sHovild. say from fifteen to twenty. Many English novels are copyrighted in America. They have to bo printed in that countrj , n i the royalties are smaller, as a, rul ®> *“'!)■ are paid here. Tho sales in a oeiuini number of cases justify the payment o small sums, which, however welcome, j- iC not to bo relied nnon. I believe .hut new authors and authors who are <noi ; vjv popular are finding it moreaudmoredU ficult to get American P" J ) ls^Lt 0 -,t.‘ the risk of setting up their boolvs. iuo of the'most popular books of vocentt ms. Mies Fowler’s Concerning Isabel Cai nabv” and "An Englßhwonmu’s Love Letters.” we r e not copyrightodm America, and they are examples of many. As a rule, the author and the English pu lisher are not to blame for this. THE AMERICAN MARKET. But undoubtedly a very few receive large from America both for serial ngh... and fov book sales. There are however, only three names in the list before me, or at most four, who can count on getting more from America, then from England. There was a very striking instance last year of a hook bv a very eminent authoi, which had about three .tunes; the cirmn lation in America that it had in-this country On the other hand some write.s who have a very large public in tins coun try never succeed in America. It is n r worth while for them to copyright their hooks. I estimate that, there are about eighty novelists who mny r-ceive from America between .£SO and £IOO for book richts If thev are able to arrange for the publication 'of serials, they will receive more. But there are thirl ecu, I think , for whom the suppression of the American market would mean a very considerab.e drop in their incomes. I believe I have indicated the extent of the possible calanlThe pecuniary results of successful novel writing . are grossly exaggerated m the popular estimate. ' It is just possible for a very popular man to earn by writing two books in a year £15,000. This would mean a circulation of 40.000 in England, yielding royalties of X3OOO a larger sale in America yielding an equal sum, and £2OOO for serial rights. I have known one ease where the sura de rived from serial rights was larger. In several cases the sales have been exceeded, but I have not known this to happen m the case of two books written and published within the year. As it is. some of our mod famous novelists publish their books at long intervals. In this case it is obvious that the results must be divided by the number of years it took to write the book. AVERAGE INCOMES. There are certainly not a dozen novelists in this country who earn an income of £SOOO a year. The average income, taken rrr a number of years would not exceed £looo,' and I doubt whether so many as sixty could hope for that. American copyright is a great thing for a few, and very useful and acceptable for a certain number. One cannot help wishing that it had existed in the days of Dickens and Thackeray and Charlotte Bronte. It makes one miserable to think how different life and work would have been for them if they had received the proper reward of their popularity in America. Not ranch that is hopeful can be said about the ordinary novelist, or the extra, ordinary novelist, for that matter, in this country. To begin with, he is his own most serions rival; if he achieves a .triumph everything that he writes is compared with that. As a rule after ten vears ho begins to decline, and his place is taken by yonngar people. One could tell tragic stories about the displacement. The hopeful thing is that serial literature is increasing, and will increase, and as its staple must always be fiction, a good writ, er is sure of a modest living. The most serious omen for the future of the ordinary novelist is the announcement which appears in a trade organ that a distinguished firm or? novel publishers "have decided to make a special offer to the trade- of a selection from popular novels iff* sets of twenty-five at twenty-seven shillings net per set, special attention being directed to the fact that tho majority of’the works are by well-known and distinguished authors.” What this means, I suppose, is that the practice of making advances on royalties has been carried to an extravagant extent. I know of a book by a very popular novelist which has not yet brought back to the publishers onequarter of the advance they made upon royalties. It is a great temptation in these circumstances, seeing that the royalties have been paid for several times the sale already achieved by the book, to sell the volume at any price it will fetch. SIX-SHILLING NOVEL DOOMED.

But if thia practice is carried on and imitated, the result will be that the trade in six-shilling novels, already very uuremini era tive on the whole, will collapse entirely. This will mean that no writer will have his boot published who cannot be sure of selling, at the very least, fifteen hundred copies, and he must be content with very moderate payments. I know instances of writers with well-known names whose books do not cell more than 150 copies, and I could name one writer, at least as well known by name in Anxeri-

ca as in England, and known everywhere in both countries, wlio-e hook .sales do not exceed an average of a thousand, if noveis go down to a price of ds Od, or lower, it will not be worth while to publish any unless they are written by very popular authors. These popular authors will not sell more copies, and they will receive about a third of what they receive now. If authors and agents were wise they would never ask for any advance beyond the royalties on the first month’s sale.

One comfort the English novelist may take to liis heart. There is no sign that he will be rivalled in his own land uy American writers. Mr Winston Churchill, the American, has had great popularity here, but this is mainly on account of the inability of the British public to believe that there can be two Winston Churchills. The "Manchester Guar. dian, 1 ’ which gives great attention to criticism, reviewed his last book as it it had been written by Mr Winston Speycer Churchill, and 1 remember when Mr Spencer Churchill escaped from Pretoria the honest Briton bought a novel by his American namesake so eagerly that vho publishers were hardly able to meet the demand.

As for America, the pirate may take heart. He has been much discouraged of late. lam not going to speak disrespectfully of him. There are few firms that have not been pirates in their time. Some years- ago I visited, one New York dirat■ ■ iji his Vlen. He ,was a Scotsman, and had been revisiting his native country. Surrounded by pirated publications, he deplored tho decline in Scotch religion, which he attributed entirely to the neglect of the Shorter Catechism!