372
PARTISAN REVIEW
Few other industries see their wares subjected to such careful
critical scrutiny, much of it sophisticated, nearly all of it public . For
that matter, few other industries operate under so severe a commer–
cial handicap. When a trade publisher supplies a store with books , it
does so not only at a discount but on a consignment basis-the
bookseller can return the books if they don't sell. (Because of returns ,
the late Alfred A. Knopf once quipped , books can be "gone today ,
here tomorrow.") Exact figures are hard to come by because , as one
publisher cannily acknowledges, "We lie, as everyone does , about
returns." But figure that even a hugely successful book may have
returns of forty percent, and you've got a good idea of what the
marketplace odds against you are like.
The returns policy underscores the escalation of risk in the era
of "the blockbuster complex," as Thomas Whiteside dubbed it in a
much-discussed series of articles in
The New Yorker
eight years ago.
When a big book bombs - a book bought for big bucks and printed
in huge quantities - the returns can devastate the publisher. At stake
is more than your cash flow, more than your credibility with the in–
creasingly influential book chains, who are your major customers .
At stake is your high-priced author's primary asset, his track record ,
not to mention your own financial olvency. You can't afford to fail
several times running when the stakes reach the $5 million level, as
they did last year when the firm of William Morrow and its mass–
market affiliate Avon bought the combined hardcover-paperback
rights to James Clavell's
Whirlwind.
How has
Whirlwind
done ? The results are not yet all in , but the
people in the ba lcony have been holding their noses ever ince the
curtain went up on this four-pound turkey. From the time a
200-page teaser made the rounds of publishers' offices, word of
mouth had it that the 1,1
~O-page
tome stank. Reviews ridiculed the
book, which didn't help (though rev iews are largely irrelevant
among a blockbuster's intended audience). True,
Whirlwind
wound
up on top of the best-seller list - but only briefly, skeptics say, and
only because a veritable blizzard of the books hit the stores a ll at
once. The inventory , as they say in the chain bookstore business,
turned slowly. And since the publishers kept rather than sold the
paperback rights , they have to count on a two-million copy pa per–
back sale - and the dream of a future movie tie-in - to redeem the
book that broke the bank at Mont e Carlo.
Lawrence Hughes, head of the H earst Trade Group, which en–
compasses Morrow and Avon , bl ames the hype generated by the
