Cover©iUniverse 2000


Cover©Lawrence Ratzkin 1973

I first came across Sophy Burnham's The Art Crowd when researching the self-publishing services of iUniverse a few years ago. The book description on the site reads:

"Money and power in the contemporary art world of dealers, collectors, artists and museums. Funny, bitchy, insightful, revealing — it changed the way the art world did business."

I was intrigued that such a thing had been self-published, but at the time I only made a note about it before moving on. Then I came across the book again last month, this time by accident and on the local library shelves, but it had a different cover. What I hadn't realized before, was that The Art Crowd had originally been published by David McKay Company in 1973, but had gone out of print. So, the copy I saw at iUniverse was a reprint of a traditionally published book.

As it turns out, some years ago the Authors Guild teamed up with iUniverse to offer a "Back-in-Print" service to their members, enabling them to self-publish their older, out of print books for free. And this is what Burnham did.

So this second time around, I actually read the book and thought it was great. I posted a review at Artreview.com, but I also contacted Burnham, and she graciously agreed to answer a few questions about her experience in bringing her book back into print. So, without further ado, on to the interview....

How long had The Art Crowd been out of print when you were first looking at the Authors Guild/iUniverse option? And did you have any initial reservations about using the service?

The Art Crowd, published in 1973, had been out of print more than twenty years when the back-in-print option came along. Initially I heard about iUniverse through the Author's Guild, which sent round a notice to members about this Back-in-Print possibility, at no charge to Author's Guild members. So naturally I jumped at the chance! After all, what does an author want but readers, and if people can't find a book, what chance does the author have to have her books touch people?

I can't remember the exact date, perhaps around 1995, and by then The Art Crowd, a bestseller on its publication, was a "collector's" book, so rarely found even in a second hand bookstore that I myself had only two copies of the original publication. It had never even never gone into paperback (another story there). Having the option of a new printing came as a real opportunity.

Once going with Authors Guild/iUniverse, did you or did they do any further marketing or publicity of the book? In hindsight, would you have wished anything more?

I am a writer, and therefore the world's worst marketer (if there is such a word) or self-promoter. I have little interest in marketing, and though iUniverse offers help with selling and publicizing your books, I find myself cringing at the idea. I don't know why; but it's just not in my make-up. I want to write books. That's why the author has a publisher, isn't it -- in hopes that the publisher will distribute and publicize the work and take for the privilege  85% to 88% of the profits. iUniverse offered me many opportunities to learn "marketing" or thrust my now reprinted book to the fore, and I'm likely wrong not to have spent my time doing so, but I was involved in writing and publishing other books -- that's my interest, not stopping to market myself and a book on contemporary art (auctions, critics, dealers, collectors and museums) in which the stories were already 20 years out of date.

I understand that the original version of the book did quite well, can I ask how many copies (approximately) of the Authors Guild edition have been sold? Or perhaps I can ask, are you satisfied with the number sold, whatever it was?

I'm ashamed to say that I have no idea how many copies were sold either on original publication or by the Authors Guild Back-in-Print service with iUniverse.com. The original book sold very well and was on the bestseller lists everywhere for a few years and made a great clatter with TV programs (I was on To Tell the Truth, "will the real Sophy Burnham please Stand UP" and also on CBS Morning News, among others) and all that happened was that people wanted me to write more about art. But I didn't want to become an authority on contemporary art -- I wanted to be an artist myself (the writer-artist).

Moreover, I make a point with all my books of not asking about numbers sold, and here's why: if the book is selling in the tens of thousands or millions, you feel jubilant until the thought intrudes that it should be selling more! Then you feel depressed and bad about yourself for not doing a better job of "marketing."  You should be striking while the iron is hot. And if the book is selling at disappointing rates, and your editor has the bad grace (with a reproving glance) to tell you how sorry the publishing house is that your book hasn't performed better, you feel even worse.  You start worrying about how to get publicity, market it, but you can't, it's time has passed.  It's not necessarily your fault: you wrote the best book you could, but somehow it's always the author's fault when a book sells well or poorly, never the publishers. So, why make yourself unhappy with information that you can't do anything about?

There's a lovely line in the Desiderata (that famous page found one day in Old St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, which has been reprinted by the millions -- you see how easy it is to be a success?) -- a lovely line that goes: "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." So taking that wise counsel to heart, I find it much easier not to ask about the sales.

For more on The Art Crowd and Burnham's other books, visit the author's website at www.sophyburnham.com.