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PUBLISHERS

Most writers hope to see their work published. Preferably in their lifetimes. There may be a few shy creatures born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air, but they are weird.

In print. That is how any normal, ego-driven writer wants to see his or her work. Wearing a proper jacket. Sitting in a bookstore window. With the blessing of a New York Times book review.

So the writer needs a publisher. Now publishers, like bras and other projectors, come in various sizes. Some publishers are big enough to be houses. To have your work accepted by a publishing house is a triumph in itself, such that some writers just quit further writing rather than risk a letdown. There are no new worlds to conquer, Alex.

Most publishers, however, are more of a cottage industry, using their garages as offices because they can’t afford to own cars. These smaller publishers aren’t to be sneezed unless their offices at are really dusty. Many act as their own editors, so that the author’s manuscript doesn’t have to survive multiple judgments by people who enjoy disagreeing with one another.

In contrast, major publishers are too busy — applying for grants from government agencies and benevolent foundations — to personally read the books they publish. For that tedious and booby-trapped exercise they employ a reader, a person financially desperate enough to enter the minefield. The professional reader is never identified, because a rejected author is a wounded beast, ready to lunge at anyone who has questioned his use of alliteration, let alone the value of the whole text.

So what about self-publishing? If the person who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client, the person who acts as his own publisher has a real doofus for an author. Some people own a whole library of self-published books, of which not one copy has been sold.

A touching tribute to ego, perhaps, but — desecration of forest land aside — a harmless folly. And the books provide a good place to press any flowers that you send yourself.