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.