Something I Didn't Know About the Book Biz

Here’s something I didn’t know about publishing:

We’ve been reading a “personal-narrative” account of life in Czechoslovakia during the Communist years. It’s a profitable exercise, but the book is incompetently written—garrulous and meandering with lots of rookie mistakes; it cries out for an “as told to” ghost writer. In my frustration, I got to thinking: could this be self-published. But it’s a main line publisher, not a vanity press. I put the question to Underbelly’s lower Manhattan correspondent who should know the truth. He replies:

[I] it's non-fiction, virtually any publisher will sign off on what's essentially vanity publication. The author guarantees the sale of a certain number of copies, or places a block order, and underwrites the ad campaign, etc. A lot of business exec biogs are published this way.

Ha, I never knew that. Business exec biogs: so that explains all the clutter.