Book Publishing Gets Hollywood Treatment

On May 7, Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins, published a new book of mine, “Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated and Transformed American Culture Since World War II.” A week later, on May 13, HarperCollins announced the demise of Basic Books as an autonomous unit with its own editors and special identity. So my book has the dubious distinction of being one of the last works likely to appear under what was, for 45 years, an imprint noted for its devotion to publishing rigorous but influential books on history, culture and public affairs. In June, HarperCollins began “downsizing,” dropping 36 titles that had been scheduled for publication and canceling contracts on another 70 books in progress.

Ordinarily, the shake-ups inside a publishing house do not matter to book buyers. They are as indifferent to the names of publishers as moviegoers are to the names of the Hollywood studios. They care about the content, not the packaging.

But lately, the book business has become indistinguishable from the movie business. Both are obsessed with bestsellers and blockbusters. Both are reluctant to invest in works that may make only a modest profit. The result is that book buyers and moviegoers alike have a harder time finding something they would like to read or see besides the latest multimillion-dollar extravaganza.

The similarities between Hollywood, the television industry, big-time sports and the commercial publishing houses should not be surprising since they are mostly run by the same people. HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns 20th Century Fox, the Fox television network, TV Guide and soon the Los Angeles Dodgers. Simon & Schuster, one of America’s largest publishing houses, is a unit of Viacom, the parent of Paramount, MTV and Blockbuster Video. The Warner empire includes the Little, Brown publishing house and the Book of the Month Club, as well as Warner Brothers, CNN, HBO, Cinemax and the Atlanta Braves. Bertelsmann, the powerful German media company, owns the combined imprints of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell and the Literary Guild, in addition to record labels in the U.S. and television stations throughout Europe.

The preoccupation of these conglomerates with the bottom line, whether in the book business or entertainment, is not in itself new. Louis B. Mayer cared as much as Rupert Murdoch does about attracting a mass audience and maximizing earnings. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with authors and film directors taking into account the interests of the people who buy their wares.

Yet in the past, movie studios and book publishers were willing to use some of the profits they made on their smash hits to finance what were called “prestige pictures” and books on important subjects. The proceeds from a “Gone With the Wind” could bankroll a “Grapes of Wrath.” The marketing of my book would have been subsidized by the profits from Billy Graham’s autobiography. Today, however, every movie or book is expected to make money immediately after it’s released. If it doesn’t, it will swiftly disappear from the theaters or the shelves of the bookstore chains that have become the literary equivalents of the suburban multiplexes.

None of this means that unconventional films or books will vanish from the marketplace. It will still be possible to see the next “Fargo” at the local art house. The best of the university presses might in the future be able to market “serious” works as effectively as Basic Books once did. But even when they have a hit on their hands, art houses can’t sell enough tickets to give producers a big return on their investment. And university presses don’t have the money or the marketplace experience to compete for reviews and bookshelf space with HarperCollins or Simon & Schuster. Readers and filmgoers who are hungry for an intellectual or emotional challenge will have to be more adventuresome in their choices, and less dependent on the malls and the superstores to satisfy their artistic appetites.

Ironically, I’m now at work on a book about American movies in the late 1960s and 1970s. This was the era of idiosyncratic American filmmaking, when audiences were shaken and sometimes transformed by movies like “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Wild Bunch,” “Five Easy Pieces,” “The Godfather,” “Nashville,” “Taxi Driver,” “Annie Hall” and “The Deer Hunter.” These films were not, with the exception of “The Godfather,” colossal moneymakers. None enlarged their profits from the sale of T-shirts and toys or gave away mugs at McDonald’s. But they changed the way Americans saw themselves and their society.

I wonder whether Rupert Murdoch will want to publish this book.