In accepting the president's suggestion to give "expression of the
_business_ side of the subject rather than the theoretical or
sentimental," I wish at the outset to recall certain functions performed
by publishers, booksellers and librarians, and to acknowledge my
indebtedness to Mr. J. W. Nichols, secretary of the American
Booksellers' Association, for material along this line.
Casual observers have come to regard publishers as bookmakers or
manufacturers, who merely put the product of authors into merchantable
form, and distribute it to dealers, for sale to the reading public. If
this were the only function of the publisher, his task would be an easy
one; indeed we might soon expect to see all publishers supplanted by one
great co-operative factory, to which authors might take their
manuscripts, and have them transformed into books and distributed
through the ordinary channels of commerce, like any other commodities.
Some superficial observers have recently made bold to conjecture that
this will be the final outcome of the present troubled state of the
general trade of publishing and selling books. But, alas! the actual
making of the book--giving to it an appropriate, artistic and really
attractive form--is perhaps the least of the publishers' trials, though
this, in itself, is a difficult task, requiring an artistic taste, well
trained and skilful judgment, and much technical knowledge.
To one who has had an insight into the publishing business, the enormous
mass of manuscript that is annually submitted to each of the great
publishers is simply appalling. They are compelled to employ a corps of
"readers" to cull out that which is worthy of consideration by an
intelligent and skilled publisher. Much that come to hand has been
hastily prepared by persons who lacked the time, experience or special
training necessary to enable an author to prepare an acceptable
manuscript, while the great majority of young authors have really no
message to tell that is worth recording. Here comes the most difficult
and trying task of the successful publisher--_the selection of proper
material for publication_. It often happens that a rejected manuscript
contains some good work--a promise of something better to come. Then the
publisher points out the best features and encourages the incipient
author to try again.
Thus books are made, not after a given pattern, like certain fabrics,
but each is a creation in itself. The responsibility of the publisher,
for the character of the creation, is by no means unimportant. He acts
as arbiter of the standard of excellence that must be attained by an
author before he is introduced to the public. The publishers' criterion
is simply a question of cash. "Will the public buy the book and pay for
it?" Nor can any other standard be adopted with safety. The whole
question of supply must always depend upon public demand.
But the publisher is not infallible. He often makes mistakes. Between
him and the readers is the dealer. The retail bookseller stands closest
to the reading public. He acquaints himself with the essential character
of the new book, points out to his customer enough of interest to cause
him to glance through it, and finally sells it to him; for the
intelligent bookseller knows the taste and reading habits of his
customers. He has his leading customers in mind from the time he orders
a new book till he has shown it and sold it to them. If they are pleased
with it, and recommend it to their friends, who call at the store for
it, the bookseller re-orders it, and, if he is so fortunate as not to be
restrained by unfair local competition, he advertises the book and
pushes its sale with energy, so long as interest in it can be kept
alive.
Thus the retail booksellers in every city and hamlet throughout the
country, standing close to the reading public, knowing what their
customers will buy, are the real monitors of the publishers.
When the publisher considers the advisability of bringing out a new
book, he cannot undertake to look beyond a few hundred booksellers. It
is through them, and only through them, that he has learned to gauge the
taste of the reading public. The paramount question for him to decide
is, "How many copies of this particular book can I sell to dealer A,
dealer B and dealer C; how many copies of this book can I hope with
certainty to sell to all of my customers in the trade?" The publisher
well knows that the dealer is governed by the same criterion as himself:
"Will it pay; will this book be a ready seller, or will it cost me all
of the profit I make on it to sell it?"
Thus the product of the author is subject to the immutable laws of
supply and demand from the time he submits his first immature manuscript
until he makes two, three, four or more trials, and finally has a
manuscript accepted. But even then the publishers prepares only a small
edition for a new author, and the dealers are very conservative in
ordering a new book--especially by an unknown author. The conscientious
bookseller awaits the verdict of certain patrons, knowing that, if the
book is commended by one whose judgment is respected by local readers,
he can safely re-order a goodly number.
Thus the author is dependent upon the publisher for the standard of
excellence he must attain in order to achieve success; the publisher is
dependent upon the dealer, not only in forming his judgment of the
character of books that will sell, but also for the number that he may
safely print; while the dealer is dependent upon his best and most
critical patrons. Hence the relation of author, publisher and dealer is
so close--indeed they are so mutually interdependent--that one factor
could not be removed without vitally crippling the other.
A distinguished librarian, who has been a pioneer of progress in the
library movement, has recently suggested the propriety of abolishing
book stores (_see Publishers' Weekly_, May 11, '01, p. 1149) and
allowing public librarians to receive orders and forward them to the
publishers. If the distinguished gentleman did not have in view visions
of personal gain for public librarians, he should have carried his
philanthropic suggestion farther, and proposed to abolish both
booksellers and librarians, and to allow the public to procure their
books directly from the publishers, thus saving that moiety of gain that
would be made by either in return for the service rendered. It cannot be
supposed that so able and conscientious an administrative officer ever
contemplated maintaining an extra corps of assistants, at an extra
expense to the municipality or to those liberal benefactors who have
endowed public libraries, in order that opulent citizens may still
further indulge their tastes by purchasing larger private libraries,
without paying the small commission or profit that is usually allowed to
retail booksellers. On the other hand, if this proposal was made for the
purpose of allowing libraries maintained by taxing the municipality, to
engage in gainful occupation, this is carrying the socialistic idea
farther than even our populistic friends have ever yet proposed.
However, inasmuch as this question has been raised, we are bound to
treat it from an economic point of view. The question is, "Shall the
bookseller be abolished and his office merged into that of the
librarian, and can the librarian perform the offices of the bookseller?"
No one has ever questioned the value of the public library from the
burning of the Alexandrian Library to the present day. The value of a
library, as a _librarium_, or storehouse for the permanent preservation
of books, has always been manifest.
Again, the public library gives a larger opportunity and a wider range
than is possible in the private collection; and scholars, historians and
students of all classes are daily made grateful to the trained,
professional librarian, who has so classified the contents of the
library as to make the whole available at a moment's notice.
Still another inestimable feature of the public library is that it
maintains a public reading room for children as well as adults.
Finally, the library furnishes reading at home to those who are not yet
in a position to become owners of books. The benefit derived from
reading of this character is often of questionable value. The _habitué_
of the circulating library makes his selections from misleading or
sensational titles. Little care and less intelligence is exercised in
choosing either title or author. As a result librarians are constantly
complaining that only the trashiest and most worthless books are read.
The circulating department of the public library is now supplemented by
others that are conducted for cash profit. These have sprung up in many
cities. And now we have the "Book-Lovers' Library," a corporation with
capital stock, engaging in business for profit. It has the advantage of
certain trust features. It proposes to organize branches in all of the
principal cities and towns in the country. For five dollars a year it
proposes to supply fifty dollars' worth of reading to each subscriber.
An automobile is employed, with an attendant to deliver the books to
subscribers each week and take up those that have been read. Having paid
five, ten or more dollars, at the beginning of the year, the subscriber
can read from morning till night, while the new books come and go with
the lightning speed of the automobile.
As in many other circulating libraries, new copyrighted fiction is the
chief staple supplied by the "Book-Lovers' Library"--the sweetest
pabulum automatically administered.
After a season of such dissipation call in a neurologist to diagnose
your patient, and he will advise you that by continuing the treatment
the mind will be reduced to a sieve, if not ultimately to absolute
imbecility. Having abandoned the more serious literature that calls into
use all the faculties of the mind, the reader of nothing but fiction
converts what would otherwise be a healthful recreation into
dissipation, that is enervating and permanently debilitating to all the
faculties of the mind, when carried to an extreme. Had the reader been
denied the use of this automatic machine, and been compelled, as
formerly, to browse through the book store in search of something to
read, more serious books would have been selected--history, travel,
descriptive writing or popular science, with an occasional novel by way
of recreation.
But to continue the argument, suppose we abolish the bookseller, as has
been proposed. This would not be a difficult matter. Most of them would
gladly be "abolished" if they could sell out their stock for anything
near what it cost them. Their profits have been so reduced by unfair
competition that they are not sufficient to pay the cost of doing
business. They have been compelled to carry side lines, as stationery,
newspapers, periodicals, sporting goods, _bric-a-brac_, wall paper,
etc., in order to make a living. By this means they have learned that
other lines of merchandise yield a better profit than books. As a result
most of them have greatly reduced their book stock, or entirely
abandoned the sale of books, and put in more profitable lines of
merchandise.
The causes that have led up to this result are manifold: 1st. They were
strenuously urged, and they finally consented to allow discounts:
(_a_) To ministers of the gospel, since they are public benefactors.
(_b_) To school teachers, since they are public educators and
benefactors.
(_c_) To public libraries, since they are for the most part
eleemosynary institutions, and hence entitled to charity.
Indeed, when I recount the charitable benefactions that have been
exacted and received at the hands of the retail bookseller, he seems to
me to have been the most saintly character that has lived in my day and
generation. And right here it is of interest to note that these
ministers, these teachers, these physicians, these public librarians
were actually receiving out of the hands of the public stated salaries
that exceeded by far the annual net profit of the average bookseller.
2d. Having secured from the local dealer a discount equal to the best
part of his profit, many librarians have gone behind him and appealed
directly to the publishers for a larger discount. This has been granted
in most cases, so that most librarians have recently been receiving as
large a discount as local dealers.
3d. Commission agents have purchased complete editions of
popular-selling books from the publishers, and re-sold them at a slight
advance:
(_a_) To dry-goods stores, where they have been put on "bargain
counters" and sold at less than cost, to attract customers to their
stores.
(_b_) To publishers of local newspapers, who give the books away as
premiums or sell them at cost prices, to increase the local
circulation of their papers.
(_c_) To mail-order agencies, who advertise the books at less than they
are usually sold for by dealers.
4th. Many publishers have been advertising and mailing their books
directly to retail customers at reduced prices, or at the same price
they recommended local dealers to ask for them, and they have prepaid
the postage, thus _competing directly with their distributing agents,
the booksellers, in their own field_.
5th. Finally, some local librarians, who a few years ago were appealing
to local booksellers for a discount, having been granted the discount,
have recently been supplying books "at cost prices" to other patrons of
the local booksellers. Thus our friends, the librarians, having inverted
the good old practice of returning good for evil, having helped to rob
the local bookseller of his livelihood, now propose to abolish his
office.
To carry the proposition to its conclusions, suppose we abolish the
bookseller. Can the librarian take his place and send the orders in to
the publishers? If so, if this is all there is to the bookselling
business, why should the publisher pay a commission to the librarian for
doing what the people could as readily do for themselves? But a general
business cannot be carried on in this way. Publishers have tried it for
years, yet only comparatively few people are willing to order books that
they have not had an opportunity to examine, and of this class
librarians are the most conservative. They, too, want to know what they
are buying before they place their orders. Hence, this postulate: If the
librarian is to succeed the bookseller, he must become a merchant; he
must order stocks of books and take the speculative chance of selling
them. But the librarian has had no experience or training in
merchandising. Can he afford to hazard his own capital in an untried
field; can he induce his friends to supply him with capital to invest in
a business of which he confessedly has no knowledge? It would manifestly
be a perversion of the funds of the institution in charge of the
librarian, to invest them in a gainful occupation.
From what I have said, it must be apparent that booksellers, as well as
librarians, have a province of their own, and perform a service that
cannot be delegated to another. And hence it is desirable that we live
and dwell together in peace and amity.
But in these days of combinations, reorganizations and revolutions in
the conduct of business, the publishers have looked farther, in their
quest for more economical purveying agents. For the past ten years they
have been trying to induce the dry-goods merchants to carry books. But,
after all this time, not more than half a dozen department stores carry
fairly representative stocks of books. They confine themselves, for the
most part, to new copyrighted fiction, and of this they handle only that
which is widely advertised.
Of late, department stores and dry-goods stores have met severe
competition in clothing stores, that make no pretext of carrying a book
stock. They simply buy an edition of a popular-selling book and
advertise it for less money than it actually cost. They do this simply
as an advertising dodge, to attract customers to their stores. Then,
too, the mail-order agencies have cut the price of the most popular
books so low that it is no longer profitable to handle them. The result
of this has been that many of the most promising new novels have been
killed before they were fairly put on the market; for _as soon as they
ceased to be profitable no one could afford to re-order them_.
The effect of this recent drift of the trade has been to stimulate the
frothy side of literature to an extreme degree. The more serious
literature is being neglected. The latest novel is the fad. Its average
life is reduced to little more than one year, though the copyright lasts
for twenty-eight years, and with a renewal it may be extended to
forty-two years.
This shortening of the life of books has had a baneful effect:
(_a_) Baneful to the bookseller, since it frequently leaves him with a
dead stock of books on hand that cannot be turned without loss.
(_b_) Baneful to the publisher, since the book stops selling and the
plates become valueless before he has had time fairly to recoup
himself for the expense of bringing it out, advertising it, and
putting it on the market.
(_c_) Baneful to the author, since by shortening the life of his books
the value of his property in them is reduced.
But perhaps the most baneful effect of this craze for ephemeral
literature is upon the people themselves. As the standard or degree of
civilization for a given age is marked by the character of the
literature the people produce and read, we cannot hope for a golden age
in American letters, unless the present system is reversed. Work of real
merit is never done by accident, nor is it the product of mediocre
talents. If we are to develop a national literature that shall fitly
characterize the sterling qualities of the American people in this, the
full strength of the early manhood of the nation; at the time when the
nation has taken its place in the vanguard of civilization; at the time
when the consumptive power of the nation is equal to one-third of that
of the entire civilized world; at the time when men of talents and
genius are annually earning and expending, for their comfort and
pleasure, more munificent sums than were ever lavished on the most
opulent princes; I say, if we are to produce a literature that shall
fitly characterize this age of our nation, we must hold forth such
rewards for the pursuits of literature as will attract men of genius,
men of the most lustrous talents, men who are the peers of their
co-workers in other walks of life. But this will not be possible so long
as the present strife to furnish cheap literature to the people
continues.
It should be observed that the bookseller has not suffered alone in this
cheapening process. The publisher has suffered. Within the past few
months two names that for half a century were household words, synonyms
of all that is excellent in the publishing world, have met with
disaster, and others were approaching a crisis.
Fortunately one firm stood out so prominently, as a bulwark of financial
strength and security, that its president, Mr. Charles Scribner, of
Charles Scribner's Sons, could afford to take the initiative in calling
for reform. He invited the co-operation of other publishers, and a year
ago this month they met in New York and organized the American
Publishers' Association. Their organization now includes practically all
of the general publishers who contribute anything of real value to
current literature.
The publishers canvassed thoroughly the causes that had led to the
decline of the trade, and they appointed a committee to draft reform
measures.
In reviewing the decline of the trade, two facts stood out so
prominently that it was impossible to disassociate them as cause and
effect. The three thousand booksellers, upon whom, as purveying agents,
the publishers had depended a generation ago, had shrunk in number until
only about five hundred could be counted who were worthy to be called
booksellers. The other fact, which doubtless made quite as deep an
impression upon the minds of the publishers, was that the long line of
books, on each of their published catalogs, was practically dead. Those
books of high standard character, by eminent authors, books that for
years had had a good annual sale, no longer moved. These standard books
have been a large source of revenue to publishers and their authors for
many years. But now so few of them are sold that it hardly pays the
publishers to send their travellers over the road.
Few dry-goods merchants, druggists, newsdealers and stationers, that
have recently been induced to carry a small number of books, feel
sufficiently well acquainted with salable literature to warrant their
carrying anything more than the most popular-selling new copyrighted
novels and cheap reprints of non-copyrighted books that sell for
twenty-five cents or less. As stated above, there are a few large
department stores that carry a more general stock, but they are so few
that the support received from them is not sufficient to compensate, in
any measure, the loss sustained through the sacrifice of the regular
booksellers. Moreover, the regular booksellers that still remain in the
business have not been buying many standard books of late. Seeing their
profit in fiction sacrificed by unfair competition, many of them have
ordered only enough of the new copyrighted novels to keep alive their
accumulated stocks of standard books, until they can sell them out or
reduce them to a point where they can afford to abandon the book
business.
From the character of the reform measures adopted by the American
Publishers' Association, which went into effect on the first of May, it
is evident that the publishers have determined to restore the old-time
bookseller. This can be done only by the publishers enforcing the
maintenance of retail prices, the same as is done by the proprietors of
the Earl & Wilson collar, the Waterman fountain pen, the Eastman kodak,
and many other special lines of which the retail price is listed.
When dry-goods stores and clothing stores bought these special lines and
retailed them at or below the cost price, in _contrast to the list
price_ asked in the special furnishing stores, in order to attract
customers to their stores because of their wonderful "bargain counters,"
the manufacturers realized that the dry-goods stores were simply using
up these wares to advertise their other business. They cut off the
supply of their goods to these price-cutting dry-goods stores, and
refused to supply any more goods, except under a substantial undertaking
on the part of the dry-goods stores to maintain the full list price.
This, in a word, is the substance of the publishers' plan. They have
agreed to cut off absolutely the supply of all of their books, net,
copyrighted and otherwise, to any dealer who cuts the retail price of a
book published under the net-price system.
On the other hand, the nearly eight hundred members of the American
Booksellers' Association have entered into a mutual agreement to push
with energy the sale of the books of all publishers who co-operate with
them for the maintenance of retail prices, and not to buy, nor put in
stock, nor offer for sale, the books of any publisher who fails to
co-operate with them. This is substantially the same system that was
adopted in Germany in 1887, in France a few years later, and in England
in 1900.
The effect of this system in Germany has been to lift up the trade from
a condition even more deplorable, if possible, than that into which it
has fallen in this country, and to make it a prosperous and profitable
business. It has proved beneficent and satisfactory, not only to dealers
and publishers, but also to authors and to the reading public, for every
city, town and village in Germany now sustains a book shop that carries
a fairly representative stock of books, so that the people are able to
examine promptly every book as soon as it comes from the press, and the
authors are sure of having their books promptly submitted to the
examination of every possible purchaser.
The results in France and England are equally encouraging, and it is
believed that as soon as the American system is fully understood, and as
soon as enough books are included under the net-price system, so that a
bookseller can once more make a living on the sale of books, many of the
old-time booksellers will again put in a stock of books and help to
re-establish the book trade in America.
Having tried to define the present relation of publishers and
booksellers, I beg leave to say frankly that I know of no reason why
publishers and booksellers should maintain any different relations with
librarians than they maintain with any other retail customers.
For example, let us take the new "Book-Lovers' Library," so called.
Their plan is to sell memberships, and to deliver to each member one
book a week for five dollars a year, or three books a week for ten
dollars a year. They take up the books at the end of each week and
supply new ones.
If this plan could be carried out successfully, it would result in
making one book do the service now performed by ten or fifteen books. In
other words, this circulating library proposes to furnish its members
with ten or fifteen books for the same amount of money they now pay for
one book by simply passing the book around from one to another.
The effect of this scheme, if carried into all cities and towns as
proposed, would be to reduce the number of books manufactured and sold
to about _one-tenth_ of its present magnitude. From a business point of
view, publishers and dealers cannot be called upon to make special
discounts to encourage such an enterprise.
The encouragement and support given to authors, by patrons of
literature, would be reduced by this scheme to about one-tenth of the
present amount. The effect of this withdrawal of support to American
authors can easily be imagined.
But I do not believe that real book-lovers, intelligent and conservative
readers, will be carried away by this passing craze. On the contrary,
they have studiously avoided forming that careless, slip-shod habit of
reading that characterizes patrons of circulating libraries. The real
book-lover selects his books like his friends, with caution, and with
discriminating and painstaking care.
From a bookseller's point of view, the "Book-Lovers' Library" is not
founded on practical lines. However, as the plan also includes the
selling of capital stocks to its patrons, it is probable that the money
received from subscriptions, together with the annual membership fees,
will be sufficient to keep the enterprise going for some time. But since
this is a corporation organized for the purpose of making money, a
failure to earn money and to pay dividends will discourage its patrons,
cause them to feel that they have been deceived, and finally to withdraw
from membership. When the members realize that they are paying five or
ten dollars a year for privileges that can be had free at the local
library, in most cases they will withdraw their support.
Thus, while in some respects I regard this enterprise as an evil factor,
it contains, I think, inherent weaknesses that will finally compass its
own end.
But what is said of the relation of publishers and dealers to the
Book-Lovers' Library is true in a measure of all circulating and other
public libraries. They do not increase, but they positively contract the
number of sales that are made in the interest of authors, publishers and
dealers.
Under the German system, of which I have spoken, public libraries were
at first allowed ten per cent. discount; but recently this has been
reduced to five per cent.
Under the English system, profiting by the experience of German
publishers, no discount is allowed to public libraries, schools or
institutions.
The American system, however, is modelled largely after the German, and
it permits the dealers to allow a discount of ten per cent. to local
libraries. In doing this local dealers are protected from competition by
the publishers, in that the publishers have agreed to add to the net
price the cost of transportation on all books sold at retail outside of
the cities in which they are doing business. Thus public libraries can
buy net books cheaper of the local booksellers than they can buy them of
the publishers by just the cost of transportation.