Here is the plan:
Go to your newspaper and make them this proposition. “We have worked out a plan to double the circulation of your paper. Our plan is to give absolutely free a ten weeks’ subscription to your paper and the Woman’s Library consisting of six volumes, which every home needs and will buy, to each person who buys ‘The Book of Good Manners’ at its regular price $3.
“The price of the Woman’s Library is $2 per volume, or $12 for the six volumes; the price of ‘The Book of Good Manners’ is $3 and the price of a ten weeks’ subscription to your paper is $1. Therefore, we will give $16 worth of books and the daily paper for $3.
“All we ask you to do is to run a full-page advertisement in your paper each day similar to this one (show him copy of ad which we furnish you). All the mail orders you receive you turn over to me, together with the $3. I will be out soliciting orders and will probably have a crew of people working for me. I will turn over the subscriptions to you together with 65 cents for each subscription. This gives you your regular price for a ten weeks’ subscription after you pay your solicitor. I will furnish each subscriber with the set of books.”
Now, of course, it will be your business to convince the newspaper why people will want this set of books.
Where does your profit come in?
| The complete set of 7 books costs you | $1.50 |
| The ten weeks’ subscription to paper costs you | .65 |
| __________ | |
| Your total cost of each subscription will be | $2.15 |
and you will receive $3 for each subscription. Your profit will be 85 cents on each subscriber.
Suppose that you took twenty subscriptions per day yourself by personal calls; your profit would be $17 per day. Suppose that in addition to this, people would either bring or send 20 subscriptions each day direct to the newspaper from this full-page ad. This would give you $17 per day additional.
Now, suppose that you employed ten other people to solicit for you and pay each one of them 50 cents for each subscription, which would still leave you 35 cents profit on each subscription they took. If each of these ten solicitors sold ten subscriptions per day they would make $5 each per day, and each one of them would make $3.50 per day for you. Ten solicitors would make $35 a day for you.