Book War

"The announcement ... is the crowning example of the chronic inferiority complex from which the book business in this country seems always to have suffered. I regard the decision of these publishers ... as shortsighted, unwise, and likely, if it has any effect whatsoever, to have a very disturbing effect indeed on the industry as a whole."

Thus last week did Alfred A. Knopf, book publisher, flay four other book publishers who had made the astounding announcement that they would hereafter sell for $1 or $1.50 books exactly similar to those for which they had for years been demanding $2 or $3. The four price radicals were:

Doubleday, Doran, in size ranking second only to Macmillan Co. in the U. S. (In 1929 Macmillan published 736 titles, Doubleday, Doran, 488, all others less.) Dynamic chief executive of this concern is Nelson Doubleday, tall, handsome, smart son of the Founder. His first fame resulted from selling 2,000,000 copies of the Book of Etiquette by mail.

Simon & Schuster, spectacular young concern (Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster) who gave to the U. S. crossword puzzles, Trader Horn, Story of Philosophy, Joan Lowell. This firm is unique for its high average sale of its comparatively few books.

Farrar and Rinehart, the less-than-a-year old enterprise of onetime Doubleday. Doran young executives.

Coward-McCann, two-year-old partnership of Thomas R. Coward, famed squashracketer and James A. McCann. onetime sales manager of Bobbs-Merrill.

The four did not unite an a single announcement. They varied as follows:

Beginning with the June 20 list, all Doubleday, Doran titles will be published at approximately one-half of current retail prices. Popular fiction will sell for $1 a copy, including the books of the Doubleday, Doran subsidiary The Crime Club, Inc. Books now commonly selling at higher prices will be sold at correspondingly lower prices.

Simon & Schuster in the fall will present all fiction titles at $1. Unlike Doubleday. Doran books which will be in no respect inferior in quality to their present offerings, Simon & Schuster will economize by issuing their Inner Sanctum titles in paper covers, will provide facilities to bind permanently any copies returned to them for the purpose by purchasers.

Farrar and Rinehart will celebrate their first anniversary on June 6 with the issue of their first $1 novel. Other new titles will follow at fortnightly intervals. This week they re-issued four popular novels (among them Young Man of Manhattan) at $1. They will continue to publish $2 and $2.50 fiction.

Coward-McCann, to overcome the prejudice of bookbuyers against the works of unknown authors, will issue first novels at $1.50 instead of $2 or $2.50 as heretofore. (But the lower price may well discourage new authors, since more copies of their books must be sold in order to justify publication.)

The Aim expressed by Mr. Doubleday in his announcement is to bring book production into line with other manufacture, to sell more books at the lower price, to provide established booksellers with competitive merchandise in the current war between them and the drug-and cigar-store book counters. Authors will be paid royalty at the same rate, not at the same amount per book. Wherefore, an author will profit no more from the sale of 10,000 books next fall than he did from the sale of 5,000 last spring.

The aims of the others were similar. All four plans were offered to U. S. booksellers as aids in their fight against book-club and book-counter price cutting.

Older publishers did not show indications of fulfilling the optimistic prophecy of Arthur Brentano Jr., retiring president of the American Booksellers' Association who received the announcement with enthusiasm. He asserted that by winter not four but 94 publishers would be selling their fiction at $1 a copy. If so, Mr. Doubleday will have proved himself the most original force in book publishing in decades.

Most vehement in his denunciation of the plan was Mr. Knopf who justifiably claims to have made many a good book popular, and to have raised typographic and material standards in American book manufacture. Concurring with him were E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., Frederick A. Stokes, Scribner's, G. P. Putnam's Sons. These and others were content to say that they had no intention of joining the stampede. Mr. Knopf, who has given the matter much thought, said further:

"Considering the investment of time, industry, intelligence and often genius which goes into the author's share ... the immense capital required to be invested in machinery by someone . . . the inescapable fact that good books are still of interest to only a small part of the population of the United States, books ... are . . . far too cheap.

"In the United States . . . publishing books apart from textbooks . . . is a luxury business. ... Publishers have suffered for years from a form of megalomania which has made them feel themselves potential General Electric companies, American Telephone & Telegraph companies and United States Steel corporations. ... In the average American community there are not enough people who will buy sufficient books to make his [the bookseller's] volume big enough to give him a living wage."

While the Battle of the Books, acknowledged to be more serious now than at any time since the black year of 1917, went into this latest, exciting phase, the American Booksellers' Association gathered in convention in New York. At their closing banquet they were entertained by a brother act featuring Dr. Charles Austin Beard ( Whither Mankind) and one Westinghouse Televox. Mr. Televox, controlled by a pitchpipe between the lips of R. H. Maxwell, Westinghouse engineer, spoke in the voice of Dr. Beard. He began, "As Dr. Beard so kindly said, I am the personification of the machine age which he defends."

Toastmaster J. P. (Show Girl) McEvoy inquired, "What is your favorite book?"

Blinking glowing eyes, one red, one green, Mr. Televox who was, of course, a robot replied: "Is Sex Necessary."

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