Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do by Gerald Gross

meeting our profit targets, so we have to cut overhead. It’s as simple as that.”
    “Not to an author, it isn’t.”
    “What’s this author?” Dot snapped, her dark, pretty face hardening, her words moving toward the side of her mouth. “I’ll tell you what this author is. He’s a chip in a roulette game, like most authors. Most literary fiction is going to lose money, right? It’s a fact of life. But we go on publishing it because you never know. Now and then one of them comes up a winner. If it doesn’t we’re not going to throw good money after bad. How long have you been in this business?”
    “I’ve been in it long enough to remember when a book got ten percent of the cover price to advertise and promote it. Okay, I’m not asking for that. I’m just asking that we don’t abandon David completely.”
    “Do you know how many editors are going to tell me that if we cut the ad budget this or that author is going to leave?”
    “If this was your typical first novel, with little enough to put in an ad, I could live with it. But we’ve published four of David’s books, one of them has made money, and this one has gotten fabulous quotes and is starting to get some major attention. We’ve got a stake in him.” She paused, weighed her next words, and decided to use them. “Also a responsibility. We’re building reputations, careers, not only publishing books. Even a small ad with the right quotes in the
New York Review of Books
puts this book on the literary map and maybe helps him to get a better teaching job. I’m asking for fifteen hundred, two thousand tops.”
    “I’m already five minutes late for a meeting. I’ll think it over. But, there’s other editors to consider.”
    Martha stood up. “I think the house owes me one. And this is the one I want.”
    “Put it in a memo. I’ll see what I can do.”
    Two days later a copy of a memo came to her authorizing the group ad that included David’s book. She called advertising and learned there would be room for one quote. Then she called David. As she explained the situation, in the teeth of his silence, she felt like a Soviet bureaucrat talking to a Lithuanian.
    When she was finished, he said, “What are the publicity people doing? Any action there?”
    “There’s not much they can do yet.”
    “You said they were waiting for reviews. Now they’ve got them, right?”
    “Come on, David. You know that a review in the
Voice
doesn’t get you on
Letterman”
    “It should get me on something. The one in the
Chicago Tribune
could get me on the
Studs Terkel
show. I’m only asking for a little effort from you.”
    “From me? I’m the one who’s neglecting you and your … book?”
    “Go ahead. Say it. My damn book? My lousy book? Which one?”
    “I think we both need to cool off and see things in perspective.”
    “Which perspective? From Old Bottom-line Moneybags’s perspective, I’m a nothing who’s being a pain in the ass. From my perspective, I’m an author fighting for his book, maybe his career. And I’m not getting what other authors in my position are getting. I see what Knopf does for Jane Smiley or Harpers for James Wilcox or Seymour Lawrence for Jayne Anne Phillips.”
    “Seymour Lawrence has his own imprint. And I’m sure that there are authors at Knopf and Harpers who are in your position and are just as unhappy. It’s not any one house. It’s the way publishing is now.”
    “What am I supposed to do? Everyone tells me you have to hustle for your book these days, but I can’t get to first base with you guys or even get to bat. I’m looking at a major failure.”
    Martha took a deep breath and interrupted him. “David, listen to me. You remember when you said that getting Victor’s words made it all worthwhile, even if nothing else happens. That’s what matters finally. The judgment of your peers, of the real critics and writers you’ve been hearing from. All the rest is just fashion, hype, and