The Publisher

Paper Summary:

This paper attempts to define publishing and discusses whether it can be considered a true profession. It looks at the qualities required to be a publisher such as enthusiasm and realism and then describes the publishing process. It also examines the relationship between the author and the publisher and its complexities. The paper concludes that the author and the publisher form a partnership where they both realize the dream of the other, the author in producing literary works, the publisher in trans forming manuscripts into books.

From the Paper:

"The responsibility of the author is to be an author until the end. The publisher is simply allowed to make a few comments on awkward turns of phrases, ambiguities and characters. He should under no circumstances take the place of the author who is the only person responsible for his work. This is quite schematic, but it is what may remain. Nev ertheless, another important feature is the passion linked to publishing a book or being published, to coming with a manuscript and seeing how it is transformed into a book. "There may be a sense at stake, in the alchemy of publishing, a sense that implies that the development of a work cannot be understood without the analysis of its publishing condi tions." Literature is also at stake in these relationships and publishing conditions contrib ute to the story of each work, as far as its publishing is concerned, as far as the relationship between the author and the publisher is concerned--a relationship that is of ten passionate and has to take place in the history of literature, generally made of "gen iuses" who have appeared by a miracle and that posterity remembers or forgets as if by magic. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Assouline, Pierre. Corpet, Olivier. Fillaudeau, Bertrand. "Auteurs-editeurs : histoire d'une relation." Les rendez-vous de l'edition 2. Ed. Bertrand Legendre. Paris: Bibliotheque publique d'information, 2000.
• Bouvaist, Jean-Marie. Pratiques et metiers de l'edition. Paris: Promodis, 1986.
• Brancq, Sebastien. Les coulisses de l'edition et les libertes editoriales. Paris: Editions des ecrivains, 1999.
• Corpet, Olivier. "Avant-Propos." L'auteur et son editeur a travers les collections de l'Institut Memoires de l'edition contemporaine (IMEC). Ed. Jean-Sebastien Du puit. Paris: Ministere de la culture--Direction du livre et de la lecture, 1998.
• Lecherbonnier, Bernard, et al. Litterature: textes et documents: XXe siecle. Collection dirigee par Henri Mitterand. Paris: Nathan, 1989.

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