"Pave it solid, old man."
When the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Little Lord Fauntleroy were made into plays, Bok was given an opportunity for an entirely different kind of publicity. Both plays were highly successful; they ran for weeks in succession, and each evening Bok had circulars of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield's method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the Stevenson play, and with anecdotes about the boy Tommy Russell in Mrs. Burnett's play. The sale of the books went merrily on, and kept pace with the success of the plays. And it all sharpened the initiative of the young advertiser and developed his sense for publicity.
One day while waiting in the anteroom of a publishing house to see a member of the firm, he picked up a book and began to read it. Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last admitted to the private office. When his business was finished, Bok asked the publisher why this book was not selling.
"I don't know," replied the publisher. "We had great hopes for it, but somehow or other the public has not responded to it."
"Are you sure you are telling the public about it in the right way?" ventured Bok.
The Scribner advertising had by this time attracted the attention of the publishing world, and this publisher was entirely ready to listen to a suggestion from his youthful caller.
"I wish we published it," said Bok. "I think I could make it a go. It's all in the book."
"How would you advertise it?" asked the publisher.
Bok promised the publisher he would let him know. He carried with him a copy of the book, wrote some advertisements for it, prepared an attractive "broadside" of extracts, to which the book easily lent itself, wrote some literary notes about it, and sent the whole collection to the publisher. Every particle of "copy" which Bok had prepared was used, the book began to sell, and within three months it was the most discussed book of the day.
The book was Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward".