I think that's partially the beauty of online publishing, though. As much as some characters are 'unnecessary', you can afford to fall in love with them and it won't really make any effect on margins as far as page count/profit are concerned.
I don't think writers can ever afford to leave in characters who don't improve the book. No matter how they are published.
It makes sense that a proven best-seller would have more leeway on word counts (Rowling, anyone?). But are you telling me what I've been told (by multiple sources, also in publishing for many decades) about debut authors being desirable is incorrect?
Debut authors are golden for most publishers. That debut status provides so many brilliant opportunities for marketing and promotion: it's like gold dust.
returned books are never restocked; it's cheaper to pulp them
That's not true for most publishers. I've dealt with restocking, I've dealt with rebinding bruised or damaged books, I've dealt with checking for damage. Returned books are restocked wherever possible, and it's possible a lot of the time. The only exception is when you're talking about POD books, which don't stand up to shelf wear nearly as well as offset books.
At HM&B I think it's true, but they have a pretty unique business model.
Many novels received positively by acquiring editors an fall if they can';t create the relevant costing points. The writer never gets to know this. My best mate worked in estimating and I was predominantly in development and marketing and neither of us ever saw a writer. Each writer had a BSI (bullshit interface; that's what we called them) who dealt with them, kept them sweet, talked about creativity.
Caffrey, I've worked in publishing in both the UK and the US, and have only ever encountered one person (a production manager who was not very skilled, and who was swiftly let go) who treated writers and editors with the level of contempt you describe here. Calling editors "bullshit interfaces" is offensive and dismissive; suggesting that writers need such BSIs is also offensive.
We have one rule at AW: respect your fellow writer. I'm going to extend that requirement for respect to all publishing professionals. You might have got away with this level of "humour" where you worked, but it's not going to swing here.
The reality is that print publishing (which I love because it's paid me a good wage for nearly 40 years) has very tight limits to ensure profitability, and while there will always be exceptions to the rule, so many rejections happen because word counts are off. They won't pass that on to writer; it all happens back of house.
I've never rejected a book because its word-count was off, and I've never known any of my colleagues do so either.
When books have been way out and I've not been able to make the P&L work with the extent unchanged I've discussed the issue with the agent or author, and have usually reached a compromise.
Book packagers, and very specific genre publishers (we're back to HM&B again, for example) do have very strict requirements for word count. But on the whole it's relatively flexible because what's most important, for most publishers, is the quality of the books they publish.
If this were not so, Grief is the Thing With Feathers would not have been published, and would not have done as well as it did.
Edited to add: so yeah, I'm agreeing with the point that non-standard sized books come at different, quite possibly non-profitable price points, but what I'm saying is there are tons of ways that publishers make books fit those price points. Only if there's some kind of egregious error (as described) or if the work is irrevocably out of price point does it make sense to reject a marketable property.
Yep.