13
We have discussed the internal factor which makes for a big sale in books rather sketchily because, as a whole, book publishers can tell it when they see it (all that is necessary) even though it may puzzle authors who haven’t mastered it. So far as authors are concerned we believe that this factor can, in many instances, be mastered. The enterprise is not different from developing a retentive memory, or skill over an audience in public speaking; but as with both these achievements no short cut is really possible and advice and suggestion (you can’t honestly call it instruction) can go but a little way. No end of nonsense has been uttered on the subject of what it is in books that makes them sell well, and nonsense will not cease to be uttered about it while men write. What is of vastly more consequence than any effort to exploit the internal factor in best sellers is the failure to make every book published sell its best. If, in general, books sell not more than one-quarter the number of copies they should sell, an estimate to which we adhere, then the immediate and largest gain to publishers, authors and public will be in securing 100 per cent. sales.