The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem

In 1970, a New York publishing company put out a debut novel by an editor and former teacher from Ohio. The press, then known as Holt, Rinehart and Winston, had taken a chance on the book, which had been rejected by numerous other houses. The initial print run was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 units—modest expectations that looked justified when, in the first year, sales barely cleared 2,000. This despite getting positive reviews in the New York Times and The New Yorker and being assigned to freshman classes at the City College of New York. The attention wasn’t enough. Four years later, the novel was out of print.