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Originally Posted by Belfaborac
Which means they would make money. Less money, but money. Which is what I said to begin with. All this palaver just to establish that simple thing.
It would also be out for some time before the copies and a competent publisher (not that I know the first thing about US publishers of the era) ought to be able to see to it that it was made available in various parts of the country on the day of release. By being first, the memoirs of a revered figure like Grant ought to sell rather well in the time window available before the appearance of copies begun to diminish sales of the bona fide article.
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They would make nearly nothing, and nearly nothing is for all practical purposes the same as nothing. The publisher's exclusivity would be worth very little, as they would have that for only a few days at the most. Once a competing publisher gets ahold of it, they can put out their own copies very quickly.
And that few days of exclusivity is assuming that it isn't leaked to competitors before it hits the stores. Bribery is effective. Competitors could well have copies in stores before the version from the original publisher hits the stores. If they get the manuscript early enough and rush it to the presses, they could easily beat the original publisher to market if the original publisher is producing a higher quality book that takes a longer period of time.
The original publisher's exclusivity would be so short that it would be of little value, almost certainly not enough to lift a family out of poverty. And that's talking about the days of paper books, with e-books, they delay would be a matter of minutes at the very most.