By Harry A. Thompson.
The increase in the visible supply of authors more than meets the
demand. A manuscript once accepted, the publisher finds no lack of
paper makers ready to supply him with any grade of fair white paper
that he may wish to spoil. Printers even manifest a dignified alacrity
to set the type and print the book, and binders are yet to be accused
of any disinclination to cover it.
It is only when author, paper maker, printer, and binder have done
with their share in the exploitation of literature that the publisher
finds that the current which had been urging him gently onward has set
against him. Of making many books there is no end, but the profitable
marketing of the same is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Enter the salesman.
He is to convince the bookseller, who is to convince the public, that
this particular book--shall we, for our purpose, christen it "Last
Year's Nests"?--is the great American novel (whatever that means), and
that its influence on the reading of unborn generations will be
measured by the rank it holds in the list of the six best sellers.
The salesman is handicapped not a little by the fact that it is
neither shoes, nor pig-iron, nor even mess-pork that he is selling,
and, therefore, superior quality of workmanship, inferior price, and
personal magnetism count for little. Persuasiveness, which, perhaps,
is a part of personal magnetism, counts; so does an intelligent
knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful
persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the
bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser
of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit
on five copies safely disposed of.
Time was when good salesmanship consisted in overstocking a
bookseller; this was occasioned less by persuasiveness than by
overpersuasiveness. Regardless of the merits of the book and with no
more than a nodding acquaintance with its contents, a persuasive
salesman could "load" a customer--as he called it out of the
customer's hearing--with two hundred and fifty copies of a novel that
had no other merit than that it had been written by a novelist whose
previous book had met with success. The significance of these figures,
two hundred and fifty, is to be found in the maximum discount to
retailers of forty and ten per cent on that quantity. Latterly, the
publisher has found that a bankrupt bookseller has few creditors
besides publishers, and has come to a realizing sense of the futility
of clogging the distributing machinery. He is disposed, therefore, to
exercise some restraint upon his salesman's ardor. Perhaps it were
better to say that the salesman, grown wiser, is more disposed to aid
the bookseller in his purchases to the end that no monuments of unsold
failures will stare him in the face on his next visit to the
customer's store. Yet even to this day, such restraint is tempered by
a certain amount of moderation.
All of which, while interesting to the historian of the publishing
trade, carries us too far in advance of our text. Let us therefore
return to "Last Year's Nests"--12mo, cloth, illustrated, gilt top,
uncut edges, price $1.50.
The first edition--it may be one thousand copies or ten thousand--has
been delivered to the publisher by the beaming binder, who alone, in
some instances, knows his profit on them. "Last Year's Nests" is by a
well-known author, and contains some elements of popularity. The
literary adviser has written a beautiful and scholarly appreciation of
it, one of the lady stenographers has declared it grand, and the
salesman, if he is given to reading anything beyond the title-page,
says it's a corker. He starts out with it; along with a trunkful of
other books, to be sure, but our sympathies are wholly with the
"Nests," and it is only its career that we shall follow.
He may be one of a force of salesmen, each of whom has his own
territory. One may visit only the larger cities, Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Chicago; another may take in the smaller
towns along this route; another, the Middle West, Southern or
Southwestern territory. Still another, the cities west of Chicago,
including those on the Pacific coast. Houses publishing competitive
lines and non-copyright books have other methods and machinery for
distribution. I speak only for the copyright salesman, and not to be
too prolix, take only the copyright novel as an illustration of the
day's work.
The salesman arrives at a town, say Chicago. He goes to the hotel,
orders his trunks and sample tables sent to his room. The tables are
set up--well-worn pine boards on trestles and covered with sheeting.
He unpacks his trunk and arranges his books on the tables as
effectively as his artistic sense permits. Then he visits his
customers and makes appointments that cover a full week. Previous to
his arrival his office had informed the booksellers of his coming,
inclosing a catalogue. This the bookseller handed to a clerk to be
marked up. The clerk had gone over their stock of this particular
publisher's books and had marked opposite each title in the catalogue
the number of copies on hand. Armed with this catalogue the bookseller
keeps his appointment at the room of the traveller. [It ought to be
mentioned in passing that this is a purely hypothetical case, invented
for the purposes of illustration. The clerk who marks up the
catalogue in advance of the salesman's arrival is as fictitious as the
bookseller who keeps his appointment promptly. Perhaps this delightful
uncertainty is another of the many influences that make the book
business, from the writing of the manuscript to the reading of the
printed book, so fascinating.]
In the salesman's room the customer examines the new books, asks
questions, hears arguments (many of them fearfully and wonderfully
made), and eventually, after much debate, gives his order. Having
ordered all the new books that he wishes, he goes over the catalogue
and gives what is called his stock order; that is to say, he orders
the books on which his stock is low but for which there is still a
demand.
Perhaps the salesman has reserved for his final battle the sale of
"Last Year's Nests." As prices cut some figure in this argument, we
are driven, for a moment, to the dry bones of prices and discounts.
Listed in the publisher's catalogue at $1.50, the ordinary discount to
a dealer ordering two or three copies is thirty-three and one-third
per cent, or $1.00 net, the bookseller paying transportation charges.
Competition, however, has increased this discount to forty per cent,
so that we shall assume that in small quantities the book can be had
at $.90 net. In larger quantities extra discounts are given; some
publishers give forty and five per cent on fifty copies and forty and
ten per cent on one hundred copies; others increase the quantities to
one hundred and two hundred and fifty copies respectively for the
extra discounts. But, as has been pointed out, the growing tendency is
not to overload the bookseller, especially in view of the fact that it
is the publisher who loses when the bookseller assigns.
Assuming that the "Last Year's Nests" is likely to have a large sale
and that the salesman wishes to sell Mr. Bookseller two hundred and
fifty copies, he quotes the extra discount of forty and ten per cent
on that quantity. If he can persuade the bookseller to take two
hundred and fifty copies, he has not only swollen his sales by that
amount, but he has forced a probable retail sale of that quantity. For
once on the bookseller's tables, the very size of the order inspires
every clerk to help reduce the pile, not to mention the fact that the
books are bought and must be paid for. Had the bookseller bought five
copies, extra efforts toward sales would not be forthcoming; the
energy would be applied to another novel. Hence the salesman's efforts
to effect a large sale.
There is another reason for this extra quantity. Two hundred and fifty
copies of "Last Year's Nests," piled in a pyramid, is a gentle
reminder to the bookseller's customers that it is a mighty important
book. Such an argument is often more potent than the disagreeing
opinions of critics. Here is a case in point.
A novelist wrote an altogether charming and spirited novel. The
reviewers spoke well of it, but the sale of the book hung fire. It was
the dull season,--May or June,--and there was no other novel of any
worth in the public mind. The salesman said to his employer: "Here's a
book that has a good chance for success. If you'll back me with some
good advertising, I'll guarantee to make that novel sell."
The publisher replied: "Go ahead, my son; I'll take a gamble on it."
(They really talk that way when they travel mufti.) So the salesman
induced the New York wholesalers to erect a pyramid of a thousand
copies in their respective stores, guaranteeing to take back the books
if they were not sold. This was done for the purpose of impressing the
buyers for country stores who were flocking into New York for their
fall purchases.
Next the retail booksellers were asked to take, on the same terms,
from one hundred to two hundred and fifty copies and pile them
conspicuously in their stores. As trade was dull and there was no one
big seller clamoring for public recognition at the time, the dealers
were willing to assist in the work of encouraging good literature.
Then an advertising campaign was planned. Critics there were a-plenty
who wagged a sad head because the advertising was undignified. What
they meant was that it was unconventional, was without the dignity of
tradition to give it its hallmark. It had, at least, the novelty of
originality, and answered the final test of good advertising in that
it attracted attention. Then the sale began, and as soon as New York
City was reporting it among the list of the six best sellers, the
salesman took to the road to carry on the campaign. The result was
eventually a sale reaching six figures.
But to get back to "Last Year's Nests." It is to be published June 1.
A few sample pages only have been printed, but blank paper fills out
to the bulk of the book as it will be. Illustrations--if they are
ready--are inserted, the title-page printed, and the whole is bound up
in a sample cover. This is technically known as a dummy, and serves to
show the prospective buyer merely the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual appeal to public favor. For the purpose of
informing the bookseller it is worth but little more than the printed
title or a catalogue announcement. For all $1.50 novels look alike,
are printed on pretty much the same kind of paper, and bear covers
differing more in degree than kind. Yet the bookseller likes to handle
something tangible when he is making up his order, and the salesman,
with even a dummy in his hand, finds that there is less wear and tear
upon his imagination.
Were he selling shoes, the salesman would, as a matter of course,
point out the superior quality of the goods, lay stress on their
style and durability, and as a clincher, present the incontrovertible
argument of low price. On no such brief can the book salesman rest his
case. "Last Year's Nests" varies in no respect mechanically from any
of its 12mo competitors; and if it did, it would make no difference.
"Look at the design of the cover, see how durable it is," argues the
salesman. "What a charming title-page, and note the classic proportion
of the printed page to the margin," he continues. The startled
customer, listening to such an argument, would be inclined to humor
the salesman until he could safely get him into the hands of an
alienist.
Two arguments and two only comprise the salesman's stock in trade; if
he can say that "Last Year's Nests" is by the well-known author whose
name is a household word and whose previous book sold so many thousand
copies, he has the bookseller on the mourner's bench; if he can (and
he frequently does) add the clinching argument that his firm will
advertise the book heavily, he can leave the bookseller with that
thrill of triumph we all feel when we bend another's will to our own.
A young and inexperienced salesman, whom we shall call Mr. Green, was
making his Western trip. As he was waiting in a bookseller's store for
his customer's attention, there entered a traveller of ripe years and
experience, representing one of the larger publishing firms. Naturally
the bookseller gave the older salesman his instant attention. With no
desire to eavesdrop, Mr. Green could not avoid overhearing the
conversation.
"Hello, Blank! Anything new?"
"Yes, I have a big novel here by a big man. It will have a big sale,"
and Blank mentioned the title and author.
At this point, Green pricked up his ears. He had read the novel in
manuscript form and his immediate thought was, "Here's where I learn
something about the gentle art of making sales."
Mr. Blank proceeded so tell what he knew about the book. His synopsis
was so inaccurate that Green knew that he had not read the book, but
was glibly misquoting the publisher's announcement. Green's courage
was fired as he reflected how much better he could have portrayed the
chief incidents of the plot. But his triumph was momentary. Blank
ended his argument in a voice that left no doubt of his own faith in
the effectiveness of his logic. "And the firm is going to advertise it
like ----."
"Send me two hundred and fifty copies," said the customer.
The longer Mr. Green travelled the more convinced he became that the
old salesman knew his business. The argument of advertising carries
with it a certain persuasiveness that the customer cannot resist. Not
always does a liberal use of printer's ink land a book among the six
best sellers; but it does it so often that the rule is proved by the
exception. A publisher once made the statement, in the presence of a
number of men interested in the book-publishing business, that, by
advertising, he could sell twenty thousand copies of any book, no
matter how bad it was. The silence of the others indicated assent to
the doctrine. But one inquiring mind broke in with the question, "But
can you make a profit on it?"
"Ah! That is another question," answered the publisher.
And the ledgers of several publishers will show a loss, due to
excessive advertising, on books that loom large in public favor. The
author has reaped good royalties and the salesman has had no great
draft made upon his stock of persuasive argument.
It is under such circumstances that the traveller finds his work easy
and his burden light. Another condition under which he meets with less
resistance is in the instance of a second book by an author whose
first book has met with success. The bookseller is a wary, cautious
man; what illusions he once had have gone down the corridors of time
along with the many books that have not helped him. For reasons that
are not so inscrutable as they may seem to the enthusiastic salesman,
the bookseller is disinclined to order more than a few copies of a
first book by a new author. Perhaps the traveller has read the book
and is surcharged with enthusiasm; he talks eloquently and ably in
the book's behalf; he masses argument upon argument--and in the end
makes about as much impression as he would by shooting putty balls at
the Sphinx. Even though the salesman's enthusiasm may find its
justification in the reviewer's opinions and the beginning of a brisk
sale for the book all over the country, still the reluctant bookseller
broods moodily over the past and refuses to be stung again. But let
the book have a large sale and then let the salesman start out with a
second book by this author: the bookseller, with few exceptions, will
go the limit on quantity. Unfortunately, it frequently happens that
the public--which is a discriminating public or not, as you chance to
look at it--does not seem possessed of the same blind confidence, and
the result is a monument of unsold copies.
The trade, I think, is coming more and more to be guided by the advice
of such salesmen as have proved to be the possessors of judgment and
honesty. By judgment is meant not merely the opinion that one forms of
the literary value of a book, but that commercial estimate that a good
salesman is able to make. The literary adviser can state in terms of
literary criticism the reasons why the Ms. is worthy of publication;
but the traveller, if he happens to be more than a mere peddler, can,
after reading the Ms., take pencil and paper and figure out how many
copies he can place. Publishers are growing to appreciate this quality
in a salesman and are seeking his advice before accepting a Ms. Some
go further and ask his assistance in the make-up of a book; for a good
cover covers a multitude of sins.
In former years it was considered the salesman's first duty to "load"
the customer; that is, sell him all he could, regardless of the merits
of the books. In those days a denial of the good old doctrine that the
imprint could do no wrong was rank heresy. Such salesmen are no longer
categorised with Caesar's wife, and the new salesmanship is having its
day. Its members are men of reading and intelligence, who have taken
the trouble to learn something about the wares they are selling, and
who have found that it pays to be honest. It doesn't seem to pay the
first year; but if the salesman's judgment of books is discriminating
and he hangs on, the booksellers soon realize that they can trust him.
As they know little of the new books he is offering, they are inclined
to be guided by his advice; should they find that this pays, they will
repose more confidence in him. A traveller who, in lieu of personal
imagination and the power of persuasion, was forced to depend upon
hard work and the common, or garden, kind of honesty for what success
he had on the road, was giving up his work to take an indoor position.
On his final trip he had a "first" book by a "first" author; it was an
unusual book and had in it possibilities of a really great sale. The
firm publishing the book was in the hands of an assignee. The outlook
was not propitious for a large sale: a new book by an unknown author
published by an assignee. But the salesman believed in the book,
believed in it with judgment and enthusiasm. "I found," he said, in
telling the story, "that the trade to a man believed in me. It
affected me deeply to feel that my years of straight dealing had not
been wasted. The booksellers backed me up, bought all the copies I
asked them to buy,--and I asked largely,--with the result that I sold
ten thousand copies in advance of publication. The firm has sold since
over two hundred thousand copies of that book and its creditors
received a hundred cents on the dollar."
It would seem an axiom that a man selling books should have at least a
bowing acquaintance with their contents, yet I have heard salesmen
argue hotly in favor of the old-time salesman who sold books as he
would sell shoes or hats. Such a one was selling a novel to a Boston
bookseller. He had not taken the trouble to read the book, but had
been told by his firm that it was a good story. Flushed with the
vehemence of his own argument for a large order, he floundered about
among such vague statements as: "You can't go to sleep until you have
finished it! It's great! A corking story! Can't lay the book down!
Unable to turn out the light until you have read the last line!"
"But what's it about?" quickly interrupted the customer, suspecting
that the traveller had not read the book.
"It's about--it's about a dollar and a quarter," was the quick retort.
Perhaps here we find the substitute for the reading that maketh a full
man. Repartee of this sort is disarming, and the quickness of wit that
prompts it is not one of the least useful attributes of salesmanship.
To carry the moral a step farther, it is only fair to say that the
nimble salesman has had the wit to get out of the publishing business
into another line of industry that, if reports are to be believed, has
made him independent.
The commercial traveller who sells books has no fault to find with the
people with whom he deals. By the very nature of his calling the
bookseller is a man of reading and culture; now and then among them
you find a man of rare culture. So genuinely friendly are the
relations existing between seller and purchaser that a travelling man
has the feeling that he is making a pleasure trip among friends. Such
relations are no mean asset to the salesman, although they are not
wholly essential. For it is to the bookseller's interest at least to
examine the samples of every publisher's representative. It is not a
question of laying in the winter's supply of coal, or of being content
with one good old standby line of kitchen ranges. It is books that he
is dealing in; an article that knows no competition and that has a
brief career. Should my lady ask for Mark Twain's last book, it would
be a poor bookseller who answered, "We don't sell it, but we have a
large pile of Marie Corelli's latest." Or should the customer desire a
copy of Henry James's recent volume, what would it profit the
bookseller to inform her that he did not have it in stock, but he had
something just as good?
It is because of the immense numbers of titles the bookseller must
carry that the salesman always finds him a willing listener. And in
the end, even though he does not buy heavily, he must order at least a
few each of the salable books. Such complacency on the part of the
bookseller might argue for direct dealing on the part of the publisher
by means of circulars and letters, thus saving the expense of a
traveller. But firms that have tried this have had a change of heart
and have quickly availed themselves of the traveller's services.
He is useful in ways other than selling. If he is keen to advance his
firm's interests,--and most of the book travellers are,--he will
interest the bookseller's clerks in the principal books of his line.
He will send them a copy of an important book, knowing that the clerk,
should he become interested in the book, will personally sell many
copies.
In the matter of credits, the travelling man is of considerable
service to his house. He is on the spot, can size up the bookseller's
trade, note if he is overstocked, particularly with unsalable books,
or "plugs," as they are called, obtain the gossip of the town, and in
many ways can form an estimate of the bookseller's financial condition
that is more trustworthy than any the credit man in the home office
can get. There were a dozen publishers' representatives who once sat
in solemn conclave discussing the financial responsibility of an
important customer. He was suspected of being beyond his depth, and
some of the travellers had been warned not to sell him. Several
personally inspected his business, obtained a report from him and his
bank, and threshed out the matter as solemnly and seriously as if they
were the interested publishers whom they represented. It was decided
to extend further credit to the bookseller; his orders were taken and
sent in with full explanations. How many orders were rejected by the
publishers I do not, of course, know. But the judgment of the
travellers, as events proved, was justified.
The publisher is learning to regard his travelling man as more than a
salesman. He is asking him, now and then, to assist him in the
selection of a manuscript, to aid him in planning the letter-press,
and binding of a book. For by the very nature of his work the
traveller is the one man in the publisher's employ who has a
comprehensive grasp of the many branches of this alluring, but not
very profitable, business.