There are four distinct publishing periods in the book world. The early spring season, principally confined to those books which could not be made ready to meet the recent holiday season, and to routine books,—books which on account of copyright exigencies have to be published then, books which for prestige the publisher would have bear his imprint, etc. Then comes the late spring season, which is principally confined to novels of the lighter sort and to books for supplementary school reading for the coming autumn. Toward the end of August the first Holiday books usually make their appearance. They increase in number until the end of September, when there is a lull. From the middle of October until the end of November there is a perfect outpour of books. The months of November and December until Christmas Day are the busiest times in the year for the reviewer.
As the books come in they are carefully looked over by the one who is known as the "critic" of the review or paper. He has men and women on his lists whose pens he has tried before—they may be lawyers, college professors, sportsmen, society men, professional novel readers, etc. He considers the author of the book at hand, its seeming importance, etc., and despatches it to a critic. An expert writer of expositions is usually ready to relieve him of volumes upon which for some reason he does not feel justified in requesting expert opinion. Occasionally he makes a mistake by giving out for exposition a really important book. The expert who has been impatiently waiting for the volume points out the error. The work of a well-known novelist is usually sent to a critic who is familiar with former tales by the same author. Juveniles are handed over to one of proved sympathy with stories for boys and girls—one who is conservative yet quick to catch a new element. Books that are essentially for gifts are disposed of in a similar manner—to one who has proved his or her ability to set forth artistic features in books. New editions of classics are turned over to writers who are acquainted with the mechanical make-up of a book, so that the reader may learn whether the new edition of the favorite author is well bound, printed, and appropriately decorated and illustrated. And among the hundreds of "brief notices," expositions, impressions, descriptions, and long and short essays that are handed in, there are invariably some pieces of valuable comment which are well in keeping with the traditions of professional criticism. The critic usually returns the book with his article. These books are ultimately collected and disposed of in various ways. They may be sold at auction to members of the staff, which is an effective way of getting rid of them just before Christmas.
Is there any likelihood of an improvement in literary criticism—any chance of a return by the daily press to what the Reviews of the past gave and those of England and the Continent still give? The standard of criticism is determined by two forces: the quality of books and the taste of would-be purchasers. If every book were really "criticised," the criticisms of many would be utterly incomprehensible to many of their possible readers. The public gets the books it desires; the books receive the attention they deserve. When the standard of reading shall be raised, so that the public shall demand better books, it will be found that more books will receive "serious" attention. As it is at present, the public does not desire much elaborate, fine criticism. It, together with its favorite authors, would be sorely dissatisfied if it got more. It may be added that, in my humble opinion, the function of a critic as an arbiter of literary taste is measurably overestimated. Of course, a man who has won distinction as a judge of books and who signs his articles may have some influence. But it seems to me that the function of the anonymous reviewer should begin and end by explaining the book and let the public be its own critic. It will certainly be in the end. For no critic ever killed a good book; none ever praised an unworthy volume into success and fame.[Back to Contents]
THE TRAVELLING SALESMAN
By Harry A. Thompson
The increase in the visible supply of authors more than meets the demand. A manuscript once accepted, the publisher finds no lack of paper makers ready to supply him with any grade of fair white paper that he may wish to spoil. Printers even manifest a dignified alacrity to set the type and print the book, and binders are yet to be accused of any disinclination to cover it.
It is only when author, paper maker, printer, and binder have done with their share in the exploitation of literature that the publisher finds that the current which had been urging him gently onward has set against him. Of making many books there is no end, but the profitable marketing of the same is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Enter the salesman.
He is to convince the bookseller, who is to convince the public, that this particular book—shall we, for our purpose, christen it "Last Year's Nests"?—is the great American novel (whatever that means), and that its influence on the reading of unborn generations will be measured by the rank it holds in the list of the six best sellers.
The salesman is handicapped not a little by the fact that it is neither shoes, nor pig-iron, nor even mess-pork that he is selling, and, therefore, superior quality of workmanship, inferior price, and personal magnetism count for little. Persuasiveness, which, perhaps, is a part of personal magnetism, counts; so does an intelligent knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit on five copies safely disposed of.
Time was when good salesmanship consisted in overstocking a bookseller; this was occasioned less by persuasiveness than by overpersuasiveness. Regardless of the merits of the book and with no more than a nodding acquaintance with its contents, a persuasive salesman could "load" a customer—as he called it out of the customer's hearing—with two hundred and fifty copies of a novel that had no other merit than that it had been written by a novelist whose previous book had met with success. The significance of these figures, two hundred and fifty, is to be found in the maximum discount to retailers of forty and ten per cent on that quantity. Latterly, the publisher has found that a bankrupt bookseller has few creditors besides publishers, and has come to a realizing sense of the futility of clogging the distributing machinery. He is disposed, therefore, to exercise some restraint upon his salesman's ardor. Perhaps it were better to say that the salesman, grown wiser, is more disposed to aid the bookseller in his purchases to the end that no monuments of unsold failures will stare him in the face on his next visit to the customer's store. Yet even to this day, such restraint is tempered by a certain amount of moderation.