Part 8

By “best seller” we may mean one of several things. Dr. Emmett Holt’s _Care and Feeding of Children_, of which the fifty-eighth edition was printed in the spring of 1919, is one kind of best seller; Owen Wister’s _The Virginian_ is quite another. The number of editions of a book is a very uncertain indication of sales to a person not familiar with book publishing. Editions may consist of as few as 500 copies or as many as 25,000 or even 50,000. The advance sale of Gene Stratton-Porter’s _A Daughter of the Land_ was, if we recall the figure exactly, 150,000 copies. These, therefore, were printed and distributed by the day when the book was placed on sale, or shortly thereafter. To call this the “first edition” would be rather meaningless.

One thousand copies of a book of poems--unless it be an anthology--is a large edition indeed. But not for Edgar Guest, whose books sell in the tens of thousands. The sale, within a couple of years, of 31,000 copies of the poems of Alan Seeger was phenomenal.

The first book of essays of an American writer sold 6,000 copies within six months of its publication. This upset most precedents of the bookselling trade. The author’s royalties may have been $1,125. A few hundred dollars should be added to represent money received for the casual publication of the essays in magazines before their appearance in the book. Of course the volume did not stop selling at the end of six months.

Compare these figures, however, with the income of one of the most popular American novelists. A single check for $75,000. Total payments, over a period of fifteen years, of $750,000 to $1,000,000. Yet it is doubtful if the books of this novelist reached more than 65 per cent. of their possible audience.

It is a moderate estimate, in our opinion, that most books intended for the “general reader,” whether fiction or not, do not reach more than one-quarter of the whole body of readers each might attain. With the proper machinery of publicity and merchandising book sales in the United States could be quadrupled. We share this opinion with Harry Blackman Sell of the Chicago _Daily News_ and were interested to find it independently confirmed by James H. Collins who, writing in the _Saturday Evening Post_ of May 3, 1919, under the heading _When Merchandise Sells Itself_, said:

“Book publishing is one industry that suffers for lack of retail outlets. Even the popular novel sells in numbers far below the real buying power of this nation of readers, because perhaps 25 per cent. of the public can examine it and buy it at the city bookstores, while it is never seen by the rest of the public.

“For lack of quantity production based on wide retail distribution the novel sells for a dollar and a half.

“But for a dollar you can buy a satisfactory watch.

“That is made possible by quantity production. Quantity production of dollar watches is based on their sale in 50,000 miscellaneous shops, through the standard stock and the teaching of modern mercantile methods. Book publishers have made experiments with the dollar novel, but it sold just about the same number of copies as the $1.50 novel, because only about so many fiction buyers were reached through the bookstores. Now the standard-stock idea is being applied to books, with assortments of 50 or 100 proved titles carried by the druggist and stationer.”

2

Speaking rather offhandedly, we are of opinion that not more than two living American writers of fiction have achieved anything like a 100 per cent. sale of their books. These are Harold Bell Wright and Gene Stratton-Porter.

I am indebted to Mr. Frank K. Reilly, president of the Reilly & Lee Company, Chicago, selling agents for the original editions of all Mr. Wright’s books, for the following figures:

“We began,” wrote Mr. Reilly, “with _That Printer of Udell’s_--selling, as I remember the figures, about 20,000. Then _The Shepherd of the Hills_--about 100,000, I think. Then the others in fast growing quantities. For _The Winning of Barbara Worth_ we took four orders in advance which totalled nearly 200,000 copies. On _When a Man’s a Man_ we took the biggest single order ever placed for a novel at full price--that is, a cloth-bound, ‘regular’ $1.35 book--250,000 copies from the Western News Company. The advance sale of this 1916 book was over 465,000.”

Mr. Reilly wrote at the beginning of March, 1919, from French Lick, Indiana. At that time Mr. Wright’s publishers had in hand a novel, _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_, published August 21, 1919. They had arranged for a first printing of 750,000 copies and were as certain of selling 500,000 copies before August 1 as you are of going to sleep some time in the next twenty-four hours. It was necessary to make preparations for the sale of 1,000,000 copies of the new novel before August 21, 1920.

The sale of 1,000,000 copies of _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_ within a year of publication may be said to achieve a 100 per cent. circulation so far as existing book merchandising facilities allow.

The sale, within ten years, of 670,733 copies of Gene Stratton-Porter’s story, _Freckles_, approaches a 100 per cent. sale but with far too much retardation.

3

How has the 100 per cent. sale for the Harold Bell Wright books been brought within hailing distance?

Before us lies a circular which must have been mailed to most booksellers in the United States early in the spring of 1919. It is headed: “First Publicity Advertisement of Our $100,000 Campaign.” Below this legend is an advertisement of _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_. Below that is a statement that the advertisement will appear, simultaneously with the book’s publication, in “magazines and national and religious weeklies having millions upon millions of circulation. In addition to this our newspaper advertising will cover all of the larger cities of the United States.” Then follows a list of “magazines, national and religious weeklies covered by our signed advertising contracts.”

There are 132 of them. The range is from the _Atlantic Monthly_ and the _New Republic_ to _Vanity Fair_ and _Town Topics_ in one slant; from _System_ and _Physical Culture_ to _Zion’s Herald_ and the _Catholic News_; from _Life_ to _Needlecraft_; from the _Photoplay World_ to the _Girl’s Companion_; from the _Outlook_ to the _Lookout_--and to and fro and back and forth in a web covering all America between the two Portlands.

There are about 140,000,000 persons in the United States and Great Britain together. Over 100,000,000 of them, we are told, have read a Harold Bell Wright book or seen a Harold Bell Wright movie.

The secret of the sale of Mr. Wright’s books, so far as the external factor is concerned, resides in the fact that his stories have been brought to the attention of thousands upon thousands who, from one year’s end to the other, never have a new book of fiction thrust upon their attention by advertising or by sight of the book itself.

4

We speak of the “external factor.” There is an external factor quite as much as an internal factor in the success of every best seller of whatever sort. The tendency of everybody who gives any attention to the subject, but particularly the book publisher, is to study the internal factor almost to the exclusion of the other. What, you naturally ask yourself, are the qualities in this book that have made it sell so remarkably?

The internal factor is important. Its importance, doubtless, cannot be overrated. But it is not the whole affair. Before we go further let us lay down some general principles that are not often formulated clearly enough even in the minds of those to whom they import most.

1. The internal factor--certain qualities of the book itself--predetermines its possible audience.

2. The external factor--the extent to which it is brought to public attention, the manner in which it is presented to the public, the ubiquity of copies for sale--determines its actual audience.

3. The internal factor can make a best seller of a book with almost no help from the external factor, but cannot give it a 100 per cent. sale.

4. The external factor cannot make a big seller where the internal factor is not of the right sort; but it can always give a 100 per cent. sale.

5. The internal factor is only partly in the publisher’s control; the external factor is entirely controllable by the publisher.

There are two secrets of the best seller. One resides in the book itself, the other rests in the manner of its exploitation. One is inherent, the other is circumstantial. One is partly controllable by the publisher, the other is wholly so. Since a book possessing certain qualities in a sufficient degree will sell heavily anyway, it is human nature to hunt ceaselessly for this thing which will triumph over every sort of handicap and obstacle. But it is a lazy way to do. It is not good business. It cannot, ultimately, pay. The successful book publisher of the future is going to be the publisher who works for a 100 per cent. sale on all his books. When he gets a book with an internal factor which would make it a best seller anyway, it will simply mean that he will have to exert himself markedly less to get a 100 per cent. result. He will have such best sellers and will make large sums of money with them, but they will be incidents and not epochal events; for practically all his books will be good sellers.

5

Before we go on to a discussion of the internal factor of the best seller we want to stress once more, and constructively and suggestively, the postnatal attention it should receive. The first year and the second summer are fatal to far too many books as well as humans. And this is true despite the differences between the two. If 100,000 copies represent the 100 per cent. sale of a given volume you may declare that it makes no difference whether that sale is attained in six months or six years. From the business standpoint of a quick turnover six months is a dozen times better, you may argue; and if interest on invested money be thought of as compounding, the apparent difference in favor of the six-months’ sale is still more striking. This would perhaps be true if the author’s next book could invariably be ready at the end of the six-months’ period. Other ifs will occur to those with some knowledge of the publishing business and a moderate capacity for reflection.

Most books are wrongly advertised and inadequately advertised, and rather frequently advertised in the wrong places.

Of the current methods of advertising new fiction only one is unexceptionably good. This is the advertising which arrests the reader’s attention and baits his interest by a few vivid sentences outlining the crisis of the story, the dilemma that confronts the hero or heroine, the problem of whether the hero or heroine acted rightly; or paints in a few swift strokes some exciting episode of the action--ending with a question that will stick in the reader’s mind. Such an advertisement should always have a drawing or other illustration if possible. It should be displayed in a generous space and should be placed broadcast but with much discrimination as to where it is to appear.

A kind of advertisement somewhat allied to this, but not in use at all despite its assured selling power would consist of the simple reproduction of a photographed page of the book. The Detroit _News_ has used such reproduced pages so effectively as illustrations that it seems strange no publisher (so far as we know) has followed suit. Striking pages, and pages containing not merely objective thrill but the flavor which makes the fascination of a particular book, can be found in most novels. The Detroit _News_ selected a page of the highest effectiveness from so subtle a romance as Joseph Conrad’s _The Arrow of Gold_. This manner of advertising, telling from its complete restraint, is applicable to non-fiction. A page of a book of essays by Samuel Crothers would have to be poorly taken not to disclose, in its several hundred words, the charm and fun of his observations. Publishers of encyclopædias have long employed this “page-from-the-book” method of advertisement with the best results.

The ordinary advertisement of a book, making a few flat assertions of the book’s extraordinary merit, has become pretty hopelessly conventionalized. The punch is gone from it, we rather fear forever. In all conscience, it is psychologically defective in that it tries to coerce attention and credence instead of trying to attract, fascinate or arouse the beholder. The advertiser is not different, essentially, from the public speaker. The public speaker who aims to compel attention by mere thundering or by extraordinary assertions has no chance against the speaker who amuses, interests, or agreeably piques his audience, who stirs his auditors’ curiosity or kindles their collective imagination.

There is too little personality in the advertising of books, and when we say personality we mean, in most cases, the author’s personality. The bald and unconvincing recital of the opinion of the _Westminster Gazette_, that this is a book every Anglo-American should read, is as nothing compared with a few dozen words that could have been written of, or by, no man on earth except H. G. Wells.

The internal factor of H. G. Wells’s novel _The Undying Fire_ is so big that it constitutes a sort of a least common multiple of the hopes, doubts and fears of hundreds of thousands of humans. A 100 per cent. sale of the book, under existing merchandising conditions, would be 400,000 copies, at the very least. It ought to be advertised in every national and religious weekly of 10,000 circulation or over in the United States, and in every periodical of that circulation reaching a rural audience. And it ought to be advertised, essentially, in this manner:

SHALL MAN CURSE GOD AND DIE? _No! Job Answered_ NO! H. G. WELLS TELLS STRICKEN EUROPE

_Read His New Short Novel, “The Undying Fire,” in Which He Holds Out the Hope that Men May Yet Unite to Organize the World and Save Mankind from Extinction_

Such an appeal to the hope, the aspiration, the unconquerable idealism of men everywhere, to the social instinct which has its roots in thousands of years of human history, cannot fail.

6

Books are wrongly advertised, as we have said, and they are inadequately advertised, by which we mean in too few places; and perhaps “insufficiently advertised” had been a more accurate phrase.

It is correct and essential to advertise books in periodicals appealing wholly or partly to book readers. It is just as essential to recruit readers.

Book readers can be recruited just as magazine readers are recruited. The most important way of getting magazine readers is still the subscription agent. Every community of any size in these United States should have in it a man or woman of at least high school education and alert enthusiasm selling books of all the publishers. Where there is a good bookstore such an agent is unnecessary or may be found in the owner of the store or an employee thereof. Most communities cannot support a store given over entirely to bookselling. In them let there be agents giving their whole time or their spare time and operating with practically no overhead expense. Where the agents receive salaries these must be paid jointly by all the publishers whose books they handle. This should naturally be done through a central bureau or selling agency. Efficient agencies already exist.

The “book agent” is a classical joke. He is a classical joke because he peddled one book, and the wrong sort of a book, from door to door. You must equip him with fifty books, new and alluring, of all publishers; and arm him with sheets and circulars describing enticingly a hundred others. He must know individuals and their tastes and must have one or more of the best book reviewing periodicals in the country. He must have catalogues and news notes and special offers to put over. If he gives you all his time he must have assurance of a living, especially until he has a good start or exhibits his incapacity for pioneering. He must have an incentive above and beyond any salary that may be paid him.

But the consideration of details in this place is impossible. The structural outline and much adaptable detail is already in highly successful use by periodicals of many sorts. In fundamentals it requires no profounder skill than that of the clever copyist.

7

We charged in the third count of our indictment that books are rather frequently advertised in the wrong places. We had in mind the principle that for every book considerable enough to get itself published by a publisher of standing there is, somewhere, a particular audience; just as there is a certain body of readers for every news item of enough moment to get printed in a daily newspaper. A juster way of expressing the trouble would be this: Books are rather frequently not advertised in the right places.

The clues to the right places must be sought in the book itself and its authorship, always; and they are innumerable. As no two books are alike the best thing to do will be to take a specific example. Harry Lauder’s _A Minstrel in France_ will serve.

The first and most obvious thing to do is to advertise it in every vaudeville theatre in America. Wherever the programme includes motion pictures flash the advertisement on the screen with a fifteen second movie of Lauder himself. Posters and circulars in the lobby must serve if there are no screen pictures.

The next and almost equally obvious thing is to have Lauder make a phonograph record of some particularly effective passage in the book, marketing the record in the usual way, at a popular price. Newspaper and magazine advertising must be used heavily and must be distributed on the basis of circulation almost entirely.

8

The external factor in the success of the best seller is so undeveloped and so rich in possibilities that one takes leave of it with regret; but we must go on to some consideration of the internal factor that makes for big sales--the quality or qualities in the book itself.

Without going into a long and elaborate investigation of best-seller books, sifting and reasoning until we reach rock bottom, we had better put down a few dogmas. These, then, are the essentials of best-selling fiction so far as our observation and intellect has carried us:

1. A good story; which means, as a rule, plenty of surface action but always means a crisis in the affairs of one or two most-likable characters, a crisis that is _satisfactorily_ solved.

Mark the italicized word. Not a “happy ending” in the twisted sense in which that phrase is used. Always a happy ending in the sense in which we say, “That was a happy word”--meaning a fit word, the “mot juste” of the French. Always a fitting ending, not always a “happy ending” in the sense of a pleasant ending. The ending of _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_ is not pleasant, but fitting and, to the majority of readers, uplifting, ennobling, fine.

2. Depths below the surface action for those who care to plumb them.

No piece of fiction can sell largely unless it has a region of philosophy, moral ideas--whatever you will to call it--for those who crave and must have that mental immersion. The reader must not be led beyond his depth but he must be able to go into deep water and swim as far as his strength will carry him if he so desires.

3. The ethical, social and moral implications of the surface action must, in the end, accord with the instinctive desires of mankind. This is nothing like as fearful as it sounds, thus abstractly stated. The instinctive desires of men are pretty well known. Any psychologist can tell you what they are. They are few, primitive and simple. They have nothing to do with man’s reason except that man, from birth to death, employs his reason in achieving the satisfaction of these instincts. The two oldest and most firmly implanted are the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct to perpetuate the race. The social instinct, much younger than either, is yet thousands upon thousands of years old and quite as ineradicable.

Because it violates the self-preservative instinct no story of suicide can have a wide human audience unless, in the words of Dick at the close of Masefield’s _Lost Endeavour_, we are filled with the feeling that “life goes on.” The act of destruction must be, however blindly, an act of immolation on the altar of the race. Such is the feeling we get in reading Jack London’s largely autobiographical _Martin Eden_; and, in a much more striking instance, the terrible act that closed the life of the heroine in Tolstoy’s _Anna Karenina_ falls well before the end of the book. In _Anna Karenina_, as in _War and Peace_, the Russian novelist conveys to every reader an invincible conviction of the unbreakable continuity of the life of the race. The last words of _Anna Karenina_ are not those which describe Anna’s death under the car wheels but the infinitely hopeful words of Levin:

“I shall continue to be vexed with Ivan the coach-man, and get into useless discussions, and express my thoughts blunderingly. I shall always be blaming my wife for what annoys me, and repenting at once. I shall always feel a certain barrier between the Holy of Holies of my inmost soul, and the souls of others, even my wife’s. I shall continue to pray without being able to explain to myself why. But my whole life, every moment of my life, independently of whatever may happen to me, will be, not meaningless as before, but full of the deep meaning which I shall have the power to impress upon it.”

9

It is because they appeal so strongly and simply and directly to our instinctive desires that the stories of Jack London are so popular; it is their perfect appeal to our social instinct that makes the tales of O. Henry sell thousands of copies month after month. Not even Dickens transcended O. Henry in the perfection of this appeal; and O. Henry set the right value on Dickens as at least one of his stories shows.

Civilization and education refine man’s instinctive desires, modify the paths they take, but do not weaken them perceptibly from generation to generation except in a few individual cases. Read the second chapter of Harold Bell Wright’s _The Shepherd of the Hills_ and observe the tremendous call to the instinct of race perpetuation, prefaced by a character’s comment on the careless breeding of man as contrasted with man’s careful breeding of animals. And if you think the appeal is crude, be very sure of this: The crudity is in yourself, in the instinct that you are not accustomed to have set vibrating with such healthy vigor.

10

All this deals with broadest fundamentals. But they are what the publisher, judging his manuscript, must fathom. They are deeper down than the sales manager need go, or the bookseller; deeper than the critic need ordinarily descend in his examination into the book’s qualities.

Ordinarily it will be enough for the purpose to analyze a story along the lines of human instinct as it has been modified by our society and our surroundings and conventionalized by habit. The publishers of Eleanor H. Porter’s novel _Oh, Money! Money!_ were not only wholly correct but quite sufficiently acute in their six reasons for predicting--on the character of the story alone--a big sale.

The first of these was that the yarn dealt with the getting and spending of money, “the most interesting subject in the world,” asserted the publishers--and while society continues to be organized on its present basis their assertion is, as regards great masses of mankind, a demonstrable fact.