So yes, we know people can make boneheaded mistakes in publishing, and there’s nothing I like better than kicking a little back of house ass, but we all know that us authors would be just scribblers without people at the house. Despite a new emphasis on the role of the author in promoting and guiding his/her own work, there’s much to be said for the staff and consultants at a good publishing house. So here’s a piece on what a sales force can do for you that the internet never can.

The best definition I’ve heard of “publishing” comes from my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who says, “publishing is making a work public.” That is, identifying a work and an audience, and taking whatever steps are necessary to get the two together (you’ll note that by this definition, Google is a fantastic publisher). Publishing is not printing, or marketing, or editorial, or copy-editing, or typesetting. It may comprise some or all of these things, but you could have the world’s best-edited, most beautiful, well-bound book in the world, and without a strategy for getting it into the hands of readers, all it’s good for is insulating the attic. (This is the unfortunate discovery made by many customers of vanity publishers.)

Today, many of the key functions that we think of as publishing are actually done by outsource firms, consultants, and freelancers. It’s a rare publisher that runs its own printing presses. “Consulting editors” (freelancers) outnumber salaried staff at some houses, and every house has a few kicking around. Many copyeditors and typesetters have long worked on a freelance basis, flitting from publisher to publisher, getting paid by the page. PR departments are not adverse to hiring specialist consultants or to tapping into a nationwide network of local freelance media reps who act as shepherds and crying shoulders for touring authors. Art departments commission paintings from freelancers, art students, promising designers, and all manner of creatives, expanding the aesthetic range of the house beyond a few in-house illustrators.

So, if big publishers can hire all these people to work for them, can’t writers, co-ops, and scrappy indies?