Cheap Books

In Phenix City, Ala., a prosperous town of 13,862 inhabitants, you can buy pretty much everything in the way of standard U. S. commodities, entertainment, even a good many luxuries. But if you want to read a book in Phenix City, you must either borrow one or go across the Chattahoochee River to Columbus, Ga. Phenix City has no bookstore. It has no library either.

Phenix City is a good example of a bookless U. S. town, but it is by no means unusual. Literary deserts also are Shelbyville, Tenn. (pop. 5,010), Picher, Okla. (pop. 7,773), Jenkins, Ky. (pop. 8,465), Kingsford, Mich. (pop. 5,526), Manville, N. J. (pop. 5,441), many another U. S. town. Of 3,072 U. S. counties, 897 have no libraries. Of 982 cities over 10,000 population, 40 are libraryless. Thirty-two million people (geographically two-thirds of the U. S.) have no bookstores to go to.

Question Mark. It is this vast, untapped, bookless audience that most excites those concerned with increasing U. S. book-reading. It has been claimed that if a way could be found to irrigate this desert, U. S. book sales would soar by 85%. Most observers agree that there are only two possible channels for this irrigation: 1) cheaper books, 2) better distribution.

Last fortnight in Manhattan observers looked sharp at a promising cheap-book experiment. It was called "Pocket Books," consisted of ten former bestsellers, printed in full-size type on good paper, with washable paper binding. Priced at 25-c-, Pocket Books were the best-looking, most readable paperbound books so far. Promising also was the publisher. tall, dynamic, 44-year-old Robert Fair de Graff.

From 1925 to 1936 Publisher de Graff (cousin to smart Publisher Nelson Doubleday) headed Garden City Publishing Co.'s successful Star Dollar Books, sold 15,000,000 reprints at an annual profit of around $70,000. In 1936 he went to Blue Ribbon Books (nonfiction reprints, 98-c- to $2.49), last year launched the successful Triangle Books (39-c-) for them. A top-flight book salesman who knows all the tricks of cutting cost corners, Publisher de Graff figures a profit of 1-c- a copy, on editions of 50,000. To the original publisher he pays royalties of 1-c- a copy (of which the author gets 1/2-c-.

Tryout of Pocket Books--10,000 copies of each title--was confined to the New York area. At first week's end they were a sellout. (First to go were Wuthering Heights and Dorothy Parker's Enough Rope, with The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Felix Salten's Bambi bringing up the rear.) Macy's sold 4,100 copies in six days. Booksellers said they brought new faces into their stores. Newsstands did an arm-aching business, as did Grand Central Terminal "train butchers."

Next printing of Pocket Books was 25,000 copies of each title. With these in his pack, Prospector de Graff will plunge boldly into the great U. S. literary desert. Behind him he leaves a big question mark: Can he equal the success of Penguin Books and Tauchnitz Editions in Europe (combined sales of 25,000,000 a year)?

Quicksand? With the exception of smart Simon & Schuster, who have a share in the business, most publishers were skeptical. Said one: "We are cooperating because of all the agitation for cheap books and the success of cheap books in Europe. We feel we ought to give it a chance--to show that it won't work here. If we thought it would really go, we would hesitate much longer about letting him have our plates." Said another: "The price is still too high for paperbound books--they have to sell at 10-c- or 15-c-, compete with magazines." A third publisher said the initial success in New York was no guide, was due to novelty appeal and Pocket Books' $2,000 full-page ad in the New York Times. Pocket Books will hit quicksand, he declared, in the distribution problem.

Actually the sale of cheap books in the U. S. is a good deal bigger than most people suppose. Reprints, at 39-c- to $2.49, total at least 10,000,000 copies a year. Biggest sellers: Grosset and Dunlap and Garden City (about 3,000,000 each). Another 10,000,000 is added by the nonprofit-making National Home Library's "Jacket Library" (15-c- & 25-c-), Haldeman-Julius' Little Blue Books (5-c-), Whitman Publishing Co.'s 10-c- Woolworth items such as Snow White.

.0675. But these are all reprints. What cheap-book advocates want to know is why original editions cannot be sold for less than $2.50 to $5. Again publishers have a ready answer: they cannot sell big enough editions (50,000 copies) to make money. Once they tried it. In 1930 four Manhattan publishers--Doubleday, Farrar & Rinehart, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann--published some first editions at $1 to $1.50. They sold more copies, but lost money, dropped the experiment. To break even on a $2.50 novel, publishers figure they must sell at least 2,500 copies. On this number, they figure average costs as follows:

Author's royalty $0.32

Discount to bookseller 1.03.25

Plates .21

Printing, paper, binding, wrapper .31

Advertising .17

Overhead (office, editors, etc.) .39

Profit .0675

Above 2,500 copies, with the plates paid for, the profit goes up. But only half their books sell more than 2,500 copies. Only one in ten sells above 20,000 copies. Roughly, they figure nine duds to one bestseller. Thus, say publishers, their business is part sweepstakes lottery, part humanitarianism.

As further proof of their inability to lower prices until huge new audiences are found, publishers point to Modern Age Books, which two years ago set out to publish paperbound original editions at 35-c- to 50-c-. Backed by the Richard Storrs Childs fortune, Modern Age advertised heavily, cut costs by using the Rumford Press between printings of Reader's Digest, set up elaborate distribution machinery. Its losses the first year (attributed in part to inexperience) were reported at around $500,000. Since then Modern Age prices have risen nearer the $1 level.

The outlook for cheap books in original editions is not rosy. But Publisher de Graff evokes a rosy hope. First, he visualizes new thousands of booksellers in newsstands, drug and cigar stores, resident agents combing the back roads like the Fuller Brushman, even service stations. Through them would come new millions of buyers. This picture may be a Pocket Book pipedream. But the U. S. book business offers no more exciting possibility than a future Phenix City, Ala., where good cheap books sell by the thousands.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.