Publishing

American and Continental Methods.

Towards the end of the 19th century came a large influx into England of American literature, especially fiction. Not only was there a growing ap preciation of many American writers, but the attractive "get-up" of American books made its influence felt upon the British market. Some of the American methods of distribution were also introduced into Great Britain, but at first with only partial success. The most successful effort was the sale of important expensive works through the medium of newspapers.

The methods of publishing in America are in many ways similar to those in Great Britain, but the discount to the booksellers is generally given pro rata according to the number purchased. It is, however, in respect of the means of distribution that the systems of the two countries differ most. In America the big stores to a large extent take the place of the English bookseller, and by their energy and extensive advertising a wider public is served. In the distribution of fiction the American plan of "booming" a book by copious advertising, although expensive, is often the means of inducing a large sale, and of bringing an author's name before the public. In 19o1 the net system, as adopted in Great Britain, was partially introduced into America.

The Continental methods of publishing and distributing, espe cially in Germany, differ, in many respects very materially, from those of Great Britain. In even the smallest German towns there is a bookseller who receives on sale, immediately upon publica tion, a supply of such new books as he or the publisher may think suitable to his class of book-buyers. The bookseller sub mits these books to his customers, and by this method most books issued are at once placed at the disposal of any buyer interested in the particular subject. The large sums spent in other coun tries upon advertisements are thus saved. At the book fairs held in Leipzig at Easter and Michaelmas the accounts for books sent on sale are made up and paid. In France all books have to be licensed before publication, but the methods of publication differ little from those of other Continental countries, in all of which book prices are much lower than in England.

In bringing the record down to the last decade, we have to count in the passing of a crisis with the World War. The period

1910-25 saw first a brief time of prosperity, then, during and following the war, a time of extreme disorganization in book publishing. The year 1910 was a prosperous one in the book mar ket, as publishers are apt to remember. New books and reprints were in good demand and were readily supplied under normal conditions. Four years later those conditions were violently disarranged.

Effects of the War.

The World War, which raised the cost and the market value of many staple commodities, had a spe cifically stringent effect on book production and the book market all the world over. The book, of all manufactured articles, is most subject to the caprices of popular taste and one of the most sensitive to any change in the normal economic conditions or the ratio of supply and demand. It is not, like food and clothes, an absolute necessity, nor is it to the idle rich what a great sybarite called an "essential luxury." The process of recovery after a war does not affect books, any more than works of art, with the economic certainty that we observe in boots and shoes, for instance, or in the cotton trade. At the same time certain forms of literature, which offer an escape from actuality and the news paper, are bound, after a war, to be in growing favour. It is interesting to examine on both counts the post-war returns of books published in Great Britain.

In 1918, when the war ended, the number of new books printed and published was 6,75o, the number of reprints 966, which together give us a total of 7,716. In 1924, six years later, the new books had risen to over 9,500, while the reprints, which had suffered badly during the war because of the cost of production and the impossibility of supplying cheap books at a profit, showed a startling recovery. They had increased to over 3,19o, actually 255 volumes more than the number of reprints in the year that immediately preceded the war-1913. The total number of new books was not quite so large as in the earlier year, whose October output—a test month in book publishing because of its nearness to the Christmas season—had established a record, namely 1,699 volumes, new books and reprints included. The October return in 1924, it is significant to note, was only 18o behind that figure.