SELLING BY SUBSCRIPTION
By Charles S. Olcott
The business of selling books may be divided, in a general way, into two divisions, one seeking to bring the people to the books, the other aiming to take the books to the people. The first operates through the retail book stores, news-stands, department stores, and the like. The other employs agents, or advertises in the newspapers or magazines, to secure orders or "subscriptions," on receipt of which the books are delivered. The latter method of selling has become known as the "Subscription-book" business.
The agent usually calls at the office or home of his prospective customer and shows samples of the text pages, illustrations, bindings, etc., bound together in a form known as a "prospectus." Sometimes he exhibits a number of different prospectuses. The customer signs an order blank, which the agent turns over to the publisher, who makes the delivery and collects the money. To cover the entire country, the large publisher establishes branch offices in many different cities or sells his books to so-called "general agents," who secure their own canvassers.
It may be asked, why does such a method exist? Do not people know enough to go to the book stores and ask for what they want? And why go to a man and urge him to buy a book he does not want? The answer goes deep into human nature. People have to be urged to take very many things which they know they ought to have. The small boy knows he ought to go to school, but has to be coaxed. Parents know he ought to go, but compulsory education laws have been found necessary in many states. The churches are good, but people sometimes need urging even to go there. Life insurance, honestly conducted, is one of the greatest blessings a man can buy with money, but the principal expenditures of the great companies are the vast sums spent in pleading with the people to take advantage of it.
Experience has proved this to be true of books. Men and women must be employed to show the people their value. The latest novel, if popular and well advertised, will sell fairly well in the retail store, but an encyclopædia, or any extensive set of books, must be taken directly to the people and explained by competent salesmen if the publishers hope to pay the cost of the plates within a lifetime. This is strikingly illustrated in the case of the "Encyclopædia Britannica." The sales in England of the original ninth edition were less than ten thousand sets. In America, where subscription methods were adopted from the first, and in England, after some enterprising American subscription-book men took it in hand, the sales may be fairly estimated at something like one hundred and fifty thousand sets.
Twenty or thirty years ago, by far the most common form of subscription book was the variety labelled "Manual of Business," or the "Complete Farm Cyclopedia," or the "Road to Heaven." The publisher did not advertise for customers but for agents. The books were sold directly to the agent, and he in turn delivered them to his customers and collected the money. Anybody out of employment could take up the business. The aim was to get as many agents as possible and sell them the books. The agent canvassed with a "prospectus" after committing to memory his little story. The subscribers signed their names in the back of the prospectus. Sometimes the young and inexperienced agent ordered as many copies as he had signatures or more. Woe unto him if he did, for oftentimes they would not "deliver." Many years ago I remember calling at a modest little home in the Middle West. While waiting in the parlor, I noticed how peculiarly it was furnished. Every corner of the little square room contained a monument of symmetrical design, all different, but each some three or four feet high, and all built of books, as a child might build a fairy castle out of his wooden blocks. A closer inspection showed that all the volumes were copies of the same book bound in "half morocco"! The explanation came later when I was incidentally informed that "Willie had tried canvassing, but most of 'em backed out."
This reminds one of the remark of Thoreau when, four years after the publication of his first book (at the author's expense), the publisher compelled him to remove 706 unsold copies out of the edition of 1000, and he had them all carted to his home. "I now have," he said, "a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself." It is an interesting fact in this connection that the successors of that publisher are to-day, fifty years later, successfully selling by subscription an edition of Thoreau's writings in 20 volumes, the set in the cheapest style of binding costing $100.
Among the famous books sold by this method have been Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," Stanley's "In Darkest Africa," and Grant's "Memoirs." The handsome fortune which the publishers of the latter were enabled to pay to Mrs. Grant was made possible only by the application of the subscription method of reaching the people.
Another form of subscription book, now fortunately obsolete, was the book in "parts." A "part" consisted of some twenty-four or forty-eight pages, or more, in paper covers. These were delivered and paid for by the buyer in instalments of one or two at a time until the entire work was complete. Then the binding order was solicited. It was an expensive and unsatisfactory makeshift, intended to reach those who could pay only a dollar or two a month. The theory was that the people could not be trusted, and therefore the book must be cut up and delivered in pieces. Later the publishers learned that "most people are honest," and the modern method is to deliver the complete publication and collect the price in monthly instalments. This plan has proved far more economical both to subscribers and publishers, and the losses are few if the management is careful and conservative. One house which carefully scrutinizes its orders has suffered losses of less than one per cent on a business of several millions of dollars covering a period of fifteen years.
In late years by far the greatest part of the subscription-book business has been done with complete sets of books, usually the writings of the leading standard authors. These books are sold directly to the subscriber who gives a signed order, and the publisher makes the delivery, pays the agent a cash commission, and collects the payments as they fall due. The old, worthless, "made-up" books are rapidly disappearing, and the subscription-book of to-day is as a rule a vastly superior article to that of a score of years ago. In fact some of the oldest and most reliable publishing houses in America now offer their choicest output by subscription. A large investment of capital in plates, illustrations, editorial work, etc., such as is necessary in many of the extensive editions of standard works, could not be made unless there, were an assured return. The subscription method of selling makes such undertakings possible, and the result of its adoption has been the issue of many superb publications which never would or could have been undertaken, had the retail book store been the only outlet to the market. The subscription business has in this way proved a marked benefit to the lovers of fine editions of their favorite authors. The book-lover has been benefited, too, in the matter of prices. The agent's commission under the modern methods is no greater than the bookseller's profit, and no extraordinary allowance is made for losses, as many imagine, for the losses are comparatively small. The desire to extend his business leads the publisher to make his books more attractive, while there is plenty of competition to keep the prices down. It is a fact that the buyer is to-day getting a far better book for his money than ever before.