The Untold Story of Books

If any­one is inter­est­ed in the world of writ­ing and pub­lish­ing, let me high­ly rec­om­mend, indeed urge upon you, The Untold Sto­ry of Books, by Michael Castle­man. (The Unnamed Press, 2024). The sub­ti­tle says it all: A Writer’s His­to­ry of Book Publishing.

Note well: a writer’s history.

The truth is there is a lot about pub­lish­ing that is rather a secret to many. That’s because — accord­ing to this book — trans­paren­cy is not a major com­po­nent of publishing.

Mark Chim­sky, for­mer edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of Harp­er San Fran­cis­co, for­mer direc­tor of trade paper­backs at Lit­tle Brown, and for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the trade paper­back divi­sion of McMil­lan, had this to say about the book: “The Untold Sto­ry of Books is full of sur­pris­es. I worked in pub­lish­ing for thir­ty years and was amazed how much I learned about the indus­try … The pub­lish­ing indus­try is often shroud­ed in mys­tery. This book lifts the veil and pro­vides a fresh, new, com­pelling per­spec­tive.”

If you have been immersed in the world of writ­ing and pub­lish­ing as long as I have — some fifty-six years and count­ing — you have heard the word “love” end­less times. As in “I love this writer.” “I love this pub­lish­er.” “I love this book.” “I love this edi­tor.” “I love this pub­li­cist.” “I love the world of writ­ing and publishing.”

I reg­u­lar feast of love. Or so it would seem. I don’t for a moment sug­gest there is no such love in the world of cre­at­ing books, and the folks that inhab­it it, but what one does not hear so clear­ly, is that there is also a lot of ten­sion between the world of pub­lish­ing and the world of authors.

Pub­lish­ing is often pro­ject­ed — by pub­lish­ers — as whol­ly com­mit­ted to bring­ing for­ward the art of good writing.

Well …

Castle­man cites two oft-told jokes about this writ­ing world.

“How do you make a small for­tune in pub­lish­ing? Start with a large one.”

And:

 “What’s the dif­fer­ence between an author and an extra-large piz­za? An extra-large piz­za can feed a fam­i­ly of four.”

The point is that pub­lish­ing is a busi­ness, a busi­ness that needs to make a prof­it to exist. That is, as it were, on one hand. The writer, on the oth­er hand, seeks to make a liv­ing by writing.

I too, in read­ing this book, learned a great deal about pub­lish­ing and its evo­lu­tion. Some of the infor­ma­tion is just fun, such as the fact that the first known named author was a woman. Her name was Enhed­u­an­na, a Sumer­ian (2285–2250 BCE) princess-priest. Less fun was to learn that when pub­lish­ers are audit­ed for accu­rate roy­al­ty fig­ures, they are all too often found at fault.

For myself when read­ing the book (twice!) I found myself laugh­ing, cry­ing, despair­ing, cheering. 

If you are in this world of writ­ing you need to read this book.