Chapter V: Mr. S

A. Are you not making the mistake of keeping too close to the publishers? It seems to me that you will not get at all the facts behind the situation until you get in touch with the people we sell the books to. _They_ are the factors that bring about the conditions you object to. The publisher is merely a machine for selling the public what it wants.

--Then the publisher has no selective function?

--Absolutely none.

--How does the public bring about the condition we object to?

--Obviously by buying the books.

--I mean to say, how does the public prevail upon you to sell it trashy books instead of well made books?

--The public is entirely uneducated on the subject of books, in your sense. People know nothing at all about paper or printing or pictures or things of that sort. One book is as good as another to any educated man so long as he can read it. He doesn't know that there is any such thing as good printing or bad printing or good or bad taste in making books. Under these conditions we should be fools to spend money on features that do not have any bearing on sales. It's a simple business proposition.

--Would the public that you are discussing buy well made books as willingly as trashy books?

--Oh, absolutely. It's the books they are interested in--what they contain, not how they are made. They wouldn't know the difference.