www.bobsmithart.com

 

 

It may be Assange's fate.

But there is no shame in

being remaindered

R D Kernohan

 

I don't expect to encounter much milk of human kindness among website comments but reactions to Canongate's 'unauthorised autobiography' of Julian Assange have turned even more than predictably sour.
     Mr Assange, it appears, didn't like what his ghost-writer conjured up from tales about Wikileaks and allegations of sexual encounters; but he had used up or made over much of the  publishers' unco-generous advance. Most of the web reaction seemed to take exquisite pleasure from a biter being bit and a leaker left high and dry. It revelled in the ancient idiom – I'm not sure it ever made the rank of proverb – about sauce for the goose and gander.
     But one comment, intended as the unkindest cut at Mr Assange, cannot have pleased his allegedly unauthorised publisher and must certainly have displeased many an unassuming author who was lucky ever to get any long-delayed royalties, never mind an enormous advance. The book, it suggested, in what seemed a moral judgment as well as a literary and commercial one, wouldn't be much good anyway.  It seemed badly written if judged by the leaked extracts, and would quickly end up, like so many authorised celebrity and political autobiographies, deservedly remaindered on 'the discount pile'.
     I don't dispute this as a possibility and might even bet on it as a probability. What displeases me is the notion that to be remaindered is some kind of moral verdict on an author or his book. It may show bad judgement by the publisher in ever accepting the book or judging what the print-run should be, though in my experience it is authors (especially new authors) who fool and flatter themselves most readily about the prospects.
     It may even sometimes show that a very virtuous publisher – the breed is not extinct – decided a book was of sufficient value to publish it anyway, even if any prospects of profit were uncertain. Or it may just show that some publishers expect such a quick and copious return on a flashy but fashionable book (as the Assange one seems to be) that there is no great risk in adding thousands to the print-run at a low unit-cost and then dumping the surplus at a vast discount (with no royalties for the author) for a quick sale and welcome clearance of expensive warehouse space.
     Of course I'm biased, as many authors are bound to be. I once wrote a book which, since it found an American co-publisher, had the distinction of being remaindered on two continents. I'm still proud I wrote it, re-read it recently with enjoyment, and am pleased that (I think) my British publisher at least didn't lose on it. I've also had more modest expeditions into book-print that ended on the 'discount piles' but it never occurred to me that this was a moral judgement on book or author.    
     However I love remainders as a reader even more readily than I accept them as a natural hazard of authorship. For they are drawn from all sorts and conditions of books. I pause briefly to skim my bookshelves (and the untidy supplementary heaps that my wife complains of) and sigh with pleasure and affection. There are decent biographies of Bonar Law and of James Maxton (written long before Gordon Brown's), another of that pious and austere enigma Stafford Cripps.

 

     There are a couple of facsimile reprints of scarce accounts of early Victorian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, another composed of the Scottish artist David Roberts' paintings of Palestine under picturesque Turkish neglect,  and also a Murray's classic 19th-century guide to Scotland. To these are added gleanings from discounted piles throughout the world which range from Goethe's travels in Italy to the history of cherokees who fought for the Confederates in the American civil war. I love them as much as any of the books I paid full price for, and a lot better than some.
     But perhaps the days of the worthy remainder are drawing peacefully to a close. Edinburgh used to have a good specialist remainder bookshop beside Greyfriars Bobby's statue but it has long gone. It became a fast-food counter. On a recent visit to St Andrews I searched in vain for a fine remainder bookshop that was once beside Holy Trinity church, though I found that a one-day book sale in a memorial hall was mainly stocked with 'discount piles'. It yielded a good account of Madrid, too earnest and historical to have sold well as a guide-book. It was a bit left-wing for me but I balanced it with Robert Conquest's reflections on the cruelties and deceptions of communism.
     I'm told that many of the specialised books of limited appeal but real value which would once have forced publishers into awkward guesses about a print-run are now likely to be produced electronically, only printed off and bound as orders come in. I've just bought a life of John Knox (by Robert Watson, who has an unfashionable enthusiasm for a great subject) done in this format.
     I also squint a little impolitely over shoulders on trains and even buses to see what people are reading from electronic tablets. I even pretend to understand devices shown to me by my grandchildren, one of which I think contained the Bible and Shakespeare's plays and had room left for a lot more.
     And while bookshops and publishers seem committed to cautious stocking and rapid turnover on the shelves – which means that good books may be remaindered sooner rather than later – the trend of the times suggests that there may be fewer worthwhile books available for remaindering and that the 'discount piles' will increasingly be heaped with the memoirs of ageing sports stars, retired second-rank politicians, and yesterday's celebrities.
     To these in due course Mr Assange may be added. In that case I might even consider buying the book – if the price is right enough, which means low enough. Maybe my few coppers will even help to recoup that enormous advance. Till then I'll make do with the news reports and the festival of derision being celebrated on the web.

 

R D Kernohan is a writer and broadcaster