—You save on covers and spend on jackets. You save on paper and printing, and put some of the saving into pictorial and design features. Would you come out with enough saving to get the retail price down from two fifty?
—I think so. I think if the thing were studied out on our "new angle" basis you'd find that you not only liked my books a lot better—as "packages"—but that you'd be able to buy more of them.
MR. A.
Q: One thing I wanted to ask ... you have had a considerable part in shaping your juvenile department.
—Yes. I have.
—My question may seem a little ... cool.... Do you prepare your juvenile titles with the children themselves in view—the ultimate consumers?
—The question's quite proper. I am glad you asked it—it goes straight to the heart of a big trouble about children's books.... The children themselves in view, eh? The ultimate consumers.... No. I am sorry to say, we do not. We can't. Because children do not buy books.... You see, a juvenile, like any other book on our list, has to please the person that's likely to buy it. And that means, a book to please adults—a book that a grown-up will mark down as something a child ought to like. Ought to, you see—the adult's judgment, not the child's. We can't get past it. We can't find out what the child really does like. When children rally to an author, or a style of book, then we get a glimpse of the children's state of mind. But that is our only contact.... All our new ventures have to be baited and primed to catch the fancy of the mothers and the cousins and the aunts—against the interests of the ultimate consumer, you might say, when that is necessary. Sometimes a juvenile runs to large sales purely on the strength of adult appreciation alone, like Ferdinand, for instance.... If it were possible, there is nothing I should like better than to deal with the children direct. I have children of my own. I think I understand them ... to a certain extent. I think I could please them. Once or twice—this is a confession—I did take a direct hand—made a couple the way I thought they ought to be. My judgment against the child's, eh?... Complete failures—drugs.... I couldn't move them—couldn't get past the censor—couldn't sell the grown-ups.
—Have you ever thought of ways for getting into direct touch with the children?
—I can see no practicable way. As the case stands you can't penetrate the Adult Front Line.