Part 27

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."

Mr. Blank proceeded so tell what he knew about the book. His synopsis was so inaccurate that Green knew that he had not read the book, but was glibly misquoting the publisher's announcement. Green's courage was fired as he reflected how much better he could have portrayed the chief incidents of the plot. But his triumph was momentary. Blank ended his argument in a voice that left no doubt of his own faith in the effectiveness of his logic. "And the firm is going to advertise it like ----."

"Send me two hundred and fifty copies," said the customer.

The longer Mr. Green travelled the more convinced he became that the old salesman knew his business. The argument of advertising carries with it a certain persuasiveness that the customer cannot resist. Not always does a liberal use of printer's ink land a book among the six best sellers; but it does it so often that the rule is proved by the exception. A publisher once made the statement, in the presence of a number of men interested in the book-publishing business, that, by advertising, he could sell twenty thousand copies of any book, no matter how bad it was. The silence of the others indicated assent to the doctrine. But one inquiring mind broke in with the question, "But can you make a profit on it?"

"Ah! That is another question," answered the publisher.

And the ledgers of several publishers will show a loss, due to excessive advertising, on books that loom large in public favor. The author has reaped good royalties and the salesman has had no great draft made upon his stock of persuasive argument.

It is under such circumstances that the traveller finds his work easy and his burden light. Another condition under which he meets with less resistance is in the instance of a second book by an author whose first book has met with success. The bookseller is a wary, cautious man; what illusions he once had have gone down the corridors of time along with the many books that have not helped him. For reasons that are not so inscrutable as they may seem to the enthusiastic salesman, the bookseller is disinclined to order more than a few copies of a first book by a new author. Perhaps the traveller has read the book and is surcharged with enthusiasm; he talks eloquently and ably in the book's behalf; he masses argument upon argument--and in the end makes about as much impression as he would by shooting putty balls at the Sphinx. Even though the salesman's enthusiasm may find its justification in the reviewer's opinions and the beginning of a brisk sale for the book all over the country, still the reluctant bookseller broods moodily over the past and refuses to be stung again. But let the book have a large sale and then let the salesman start out with a second book by this author: the bookseller, with few exceptions, will go the limit on quantity. Unfortunately, it frequently happens that the public--which is a discriminating public or not, as you chance to look at it--does not seem possessed of the same blind confidence, and the result is a monument of unsold copies.

The trade, I think, is coming more and more to be guided by the advice of such salesmen as have proved to be the possessors of judgment and honesty. By judgment is meant not merely the opinion that one forms of the literary value of a book, but that commercial estimate that a good salesman is able to make. The literary adviser can state in terms of literary criticism the reasons why the Ms. is worthy of publication; but the traveller, if he happens to be more than a mere peddler, can, after reading the Ms., take pencil and paper and figure out how many copies he can place. Publishers are growing to appreciate this quality in a salesman and are seeking his advice before accepting a Ms. Some go further and ask his assistance in the make-up of a book; for a good cover covers a multitude of sins.

In former years it was considered the salesman's first duty to "load" the customer; that is, sell him all he could, regardless of the merits of the books. In those days a denial of the good old doctrine that the imprint could do no wrong was rank heresy. Such salesmen are no longer categorised with Caesar's wife, and the new salesmanship is having its day. Its members are men of reading and intelligence, who have taken the trouble to learn something about the wares they are selling, and who have found that it pays to be honest. It doesn't seem to pay the first year; but if the salesman's judgment of books is discriminating and he hangs on, the booksellers soon realize that they can trust him. As they know little of the new books he is offering, they are inclined to be guided by his advice; should they find that this pays, they will repose more confidence in him. A traveller who, in lieu of personal imagination and the power of persuasion, was forced to depend upon hard work and the common, or garden, kind of honesty for what success he had on the road, was giving up his work to take an indoor position. On his final trip he had a "first" book by a "first" author; it was an unusual book and had in it possibilities of a really great sale. The firm publishing the book was in the hands of an assignee. The outlook was not propitious for a large sale: a new book by an unknown author published by an assignee. But the salesman believed in the book, believed in it with judgment and enthusiasm. "I found," he said, in telling the story, "that the trade to a man believed in me. It affected me deeply to feel that my years of straight dealing had not been wasted. The booksellers backed me up, bought all the copies I asked them to buy,--and I asked largely,--with the result that I sold ten thousand copies in advance of publication. The firm has sold since over two hundred thousand copies of that book and its creditors received a hundred cents on the dollar."

It would seem an axiom that a man selling books should have at least a bowing acquaintance with their contents, yet I have heard salesmen argue hotly in favor of the old-time salesman who sold books as he would sell shoes or hats. Such a one was selling a novel to a Boston bookseller. He had not taken the trouble to read the book, but had been told by his firm that it was a good story. Flushed with the vehemence of his own argument for a large order, he floundered about among such vague statements as: "You can't go to sleep until you have finished it! It's great! A corking story! Can't lay the book down! Unable to turn out the light until you have read the last line!"

"But what's it about?" quickly interrupted the customer, suspecting that the traveller had not read the book.

"It's about--it's about a dollar and a quarter," was the quick retort.

Perhaps here we find the substitute for the reading that maketh a full man. Repartee of this sort is disarming, and the quickness of wit that prompts it is not one of the least useful attributes of salesmanship. To carry the moral a step farther, it is only fair to say that the nimble salesman has had the wit to get out of the publishing business into another line of industry that, if reports are to be believed, has made him independent.

The commercial traveller who sells books has no fault to find with the people with whom he deals. By the very nature of his calling the bookseller is a man of reading and culture; now and then among them you find a man of rare culture. So genuinely friendly are the relations existing between seller and purchaser that a travelling man has the feeling that he is making a pleasure trip among friends. Such relations are no mean asset to the salesman, although they are not wholly essential. For it is to the bookseller's interest at least to examine the samples of every publisher's representative. It is not a question of laying in the winter's supply of coal, or of being content with one good old standby line of kitchen ranges. It is books that he is dealing in; an article that knows no competition and that has a brief career. Should my lady ask for Mark Twain's last book, it would be a poor bookseller who answered, "We don't sell it, but we have a large pile of Marie Corelli's latest." Or should the customer desire a copy of Henry James's recent volume, what would it profit the bookseller to inform her that he did not have it in stock, but he had something just as good?

It is because of the immense numbers of titles the bookseller must carry that the salesman always finds him a willing listener. And in the end, even though he does not buy heavily, he must order at least a few each of the salable books. Such complacency on the part of the bookseller might argue for direct dealing on the part of the publisher by means of circulars and letters, thus saving the expense of a traveller. But firms that have tried this have had a change of heart and have quickly availed themselves of the traveller's services.

He is useful in ways other than selling. If he is keen to advance his firm's interests,--and most of the book travellers are,--he will interest the bookseller's clerks in the principal books of his line. He will send them a copy of an important book, knowing that the clerk, should he become interested in the book, will personally sell many copies.

In the matter of credits, the travelling man is of considerable service to his house. He is on the spot, can size up the bookseller's trade, note if he is overstocked, particularly with unsalable books, or "plugs," as they are called, obtain the gossip of the town, and in many ways can form an estimate of the bookseller's financial condition that is more trustworthy than any the credit man in the home office can get. There were a dozen publishers' representatives who once sat in solemn conclave discussing the financial responsibility of an important customer. He was suspected of being beyond his depth, and some of the travellers had been warned not to sell him. Several personally inspected his business, obtained a report from him and his bank, and threshed out the matter as solemnly and seriously as if they were the interested publishers whom they represented. It was decided to extend further credit to the bookseller; his orders were taken and sent in with full explanations. How many orders were rejected by the publishers I do not, of course, know. But the judgment of the travellers, as events proved, was justified.

The publisher is learning to regard his travelling man as more than a salesman. He is asking him, now and then, to assist him in the selection of a manuscript, to aid him in planning the letter-press, and binding of a book. For by the very nature of his work the traveller is the one man in the publisher's employ who has a comprehensive grasp of the many branches of this alluring, but not very profitable, business.

SELLING AT WHOLESALE

By Joseph E. Bray.

In the process of manufacture a book passes through so many hands that if the finished product is exactly in accordance with the plan that existed in the mind of its designer, he is justified in looking upon it with the satisfaction felt by an artist who has worked well. After a book is issued, however, it is quite another and equally important a matter to sell it, and this part of book publication requires as much thought and perhaps more dogged persistence than the other. There are some books, such as "Ben Hur" and "David Harum," for instance, that make a market for themselves, and the demand for such successes, though starting perhaps in a rather circumscribed locality, moves onward and outward, gathering force all the time like an avalanche. These are rare exceptions, however, and for most books a market must be created. No matter how good the book, it is not enough to view the finished product with satisfaction and expect that the public will buy it in the proportion that it deserves. It has to be marketed like any other article of commerce; and a book is only on the market properly when you find its selling points known to the trade, and the volume itself temptingly displayed on the counters in the bookstores everywhere, ready to become the property of any one who may be attracted by a reviewer's description, a clever advertisement, the polite recommendation of a well-posted clerk, or any other of the many reasons that induce people to buy books. This condition of course obtains in all large cities on or soon after the day of publication of a well-managed book--but urban publicity is not sufficient. The whole country must be taken care of, and the several thousand booksellers scattered over this great land must be placed in the same relative position as their brethren in the large cities. How they are supplied with the book, posted as to its merits, and enabled to take care of whatever demands arise, is the wholesale, or "jobbing," side of book selling.

This class of booksellers relies mostly upon the wholesaler for information and supplies. Everyone knows when Winston Churchill and Mrs. Humphry Ward are writing books, and what they are about; but when a dealer in a small town gets a call for "The Sands of Time," author unknown, a book he has never heard of before, he usually transmits the order just as he has received it to his jobber, who supplies him with the book if it is on the market, or with the necessary information regarding it if he is not able to supply it. The jobber's work, broadly speaking, is twofold: To see that a book for which the demand is certain to be large and immediate is in the hands of all his customers promptly after publication, and to take care of all inquiries that arise throughout the country for lesser-known books. His establishment must be a very temple of learning, and he has to know everything in the book world, from the plot of the latest "best seller" to the relative importance of a work on the differential calculus.

Let us take his first duty. A book is to be published by a noted author, and a large sale is confidently expected. It will be widely advertised, and the press will feature it in the review columns. His first move usually is to distribute descriptive notices among his customers, telling them what he knows about it and inviting them to send in their orders. His travellers are also notified and are advised as to how the book is likely to be received by the people, and whether it is accounted better or worse than the author's previous works. The jobber has therefore to size up a book early in the game, without perhaps having seen anything relating to it except the publisher's advance notices. He has to be very careful not to "over-sell" the book, and yet at the same time he must distribute it in sufficient quantities, so that no sales may be lost through dealers not having supplies. Orders generally begin to come in quickly, and sometimes the advance sales of popular books are enormous. Then comes the question of buying a first supply. The suave, persuasive agent of the publisher waits upon the jobber and tells him what a wonderful work it is, that the demand is without a doubt going to beat all records, and he had "better hurry up and place a large order before the first edition is exhausted," and all that kind of thing. The jobber takes into consideration the facts he has been able to learn concerning the book, and places an order accordingly. Then his own travellers are supplied with dummies or advance copies, and the work of arousing an interest in the book in all sections of the country proceeds actively. Not only are all the towns canvassed thoroughly, but even the smaller villages are visited or the modest orders solicited by mail, though the stocks of the local booksellers may embrace only a few of the best sellers.

It is generally arranged so that the stock of the book of the kind to which we have alluded is delivered to the jobber on or before the day of publication, and he in turn tries to place it in the hands of his customers early, usually on or within a day or two of the date of issue. From Maine to California, and from the northern boundary to the Gulf, there is no town of importance, and no village where a bookstore exists, that has not copies of, or information concerning, the book within a short time of its coming from the press. After this is done, patience is necessary and a period of comparative inactivity ensues. The book is before the people, and it is necessary to wait for their verdict. There are many ways of "puffing" a book. Clever advertising will do much. Window displays and all the other arts resorted to by bookseller and publisher sell copies; but unless the people take to it, unless it appeals to them, unless they talk about it, and pass it along, none of these ways will do more than give a book a very temporary period of demand. The wisest publisher sometimes issues books that never reach a second edition. They awaken no responsive echo in the hearts of the people, the stamp of public approval is not put upon them, and although hailed with a flourish of trumpets and a blast of advertising, they die an early death, the author and the publisher perhaps being the only people that regret their demise.

In the case of a work that does meet with public approval, this approval is soon shown, and it is not a hard matter to care for the demand. The wholesaler aims to keep a stock on hand sufficiently large to cover all calls upon him, and does what he can to push the good thing along, through his salesmen and the circular literature which he sends out from time to time.