The publisher replied: "Go ahead, my son; I'll take a gamble on it." (They really talk that way when they travel mufti.) So the salesman induced the New York wholesalers to erect a pyramid of a thousand copies in their respective stores, guaranteeing to take back the books if they were not sold. This was done for the purpose of impressing the buyers for country stores who were flocking into New York for their fall purchases.
Next the retail booksellers were asked to take, on the same terms, from one hundred to two hundred and fifty copies and pile them conspicuously in their stores. As trade was dull and there was no one big seller clamoring for public recognition at the time, the dealers were willing to assist in the work of encouraging good literature.
Then an advertising campaign was planned. Critics there were a-plenty who wagged a sad head because the advertising was undignified. What they meant was that it was unconventional, was without the dignity of tradition to give it its hallmark. It had, at least, the novelty of originality, and answered the final test of good advertising in that it attracted attention. Then the sale began, and as soon as New York City was reporting it among the list of the six best sellers, the salesman took to the road to carry on the campaign. The result was eventually a sale reaching six figures.
But to get back to "Last Year's Nests." It is to be published June 1. A few sample pages only have been printed, but blank paper fills out to the bulk of the book as it will be. Illustrations—if they are ready—are inserted, the title-page printed, and the whole is bound up in a sample cover. This is technically known as a dummy, and serves to show the prospective buyer merely the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual appeal to public favor. For the purpose of informing the bookseller it is worth but little more than the printed title or a catalogue announcement. For all $1.50 novels look alike, are printed on pretty much the same kind of paper, and bear covers differing more in degree than kind. Yet the bookseller likes to handle something tangible when he is making up his order, and the salesman, with even a dummy in his hand, finds that there is less wear and tear upon his imagination.
Were he selling shoes, the salesman would, as a matter of course, point out the superior quality of the goods, lay stress on their style and durability, and as a clincher, present the incontrovertible argument of low price. On no such brief can the book salesman rest his case. "Last Year's Nests" varies in no respect mechanically from any of its 12mo competitors; and if it did, it would make no difference. "Look at the design of the cover, see how durable it is," argues the salesman. "What a charming title-page, and note the classic proportion of the printed page to the margin," he continues. The startled customer, listening to such an argument, would be inclined to humor the salesman until he could safely get him into the hands of an alienist.
Two arguments and two only comprise the salesman's stock in trade; if he can say that "Last Year's Nests" is by the well-known author whose name is a household word and whose previous book sold so many thousand copies, he has the bookseller on the mourner's bench; if he can (and he frequently does) add the clinching argument that his firm will advertise the book heavily, he can leave the bookseller with that thrill of triumph we all feel when we bend another's will to our own.
A young and inexperienced salesman, whom we shall call Mr. Green, was making his Western trip. As he was waiting in a bookseller's store for his customer's attention, there entered a traveller of ripe years and experience, representing one of the larger publishing firms. Naturally the bookseller gave the older salesman his instant attention. With no desire to eavesdrop, Mr. Green could not avoid overhearing the conversation.
"Hello, Blank! Anything new?"
"Yes, I have a big novel here by a big man. It will have a big sale," and Blank mentioned the title and author.
At this point, Green pricked up his ears. He had read the novel in manuscript form and his immediate thought was, "Here's where I learn something about the gentle art of making sales."