Chapter I: Mr. B

Q: Mr. B----, will you please tell the committee why you printed this book on card-board?

A: To make it the right thickness. It had to be one inch thick.

--Why that thick, particularly?

--Because otherwise it would not sell. If a book isn't one inch thick it won't sell.

--Do you mean to say that people who buy books select them with the help of a foot rule?

--They have to have some standard of selection.

--So that it is your practice to stretch out the text if it is too short by printing it on egg-box stock?

--Not my practice, particularly. All publishers do it. We are obliged to use this and other means to bring the book up to a proper thickness. You must remember that our prices are not based on the contents of a book but on its size.

--You mention other methods. Would you mind telling us what other method you use?

--We can expand the letter-press judiciously. We limit the matter to seven words on a page, say, and so get a greater number of pages. We can use large type and can lead considerably.

--But does not that practice hurt the appearance of the page? Make a poor-looking page?

--I am afraid I do not get your meaning.

--I mean to say, is not the page ugly and illegible when you expand the matter to that extent?

--You don't consider the look of a page in making a book. That is a thing that doesn't enter into the production of a book. If I understand you correctly, do you mean to say that it matters how a book looks?

--That was the thought in my mind.

--That's a new idea in book publishing!

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--You were speaking of the pressure of industrial conditions since the war. Under these conditions what percentage of the traditions of the craft can you preserve, would you say?

--The traditions of what craft?

--The craft of printing, obviously. What I am trying to get at is this:--There are certain precise and matured standards of workmanship in the printing craft; these standards are the results of experiment through nearly five hundred years. How far are these standards effective under your present-day conditions?

--Those standards, so far as I know anything about them, are what you would call academic. In the first place, book-manufacturing is not a craft, it is a business. As for standards of workmanship--I can understand the term in connection with cabinet-making, for example, or tailoring, but I should not apply the expression to books. You do not talk about the "standards of workmanship" in making soap, do you?

--Then in your mind there does not linger any atmosphere of an art about the making of books?

--When you talk about "atmosphere" you have me out of my depth. There isn't any atmosphere of art lingering about making soap, is there?

--You would class soap-making with book-making?

--I can see no reason why not.

--May I ask you why you were selected by ---- Company to manage their manufacturing department?

--Really, I must say that you overstep the borders--

--Please do not misinterpret my question. It is really pertinent to the inquiry.

--It should certainly be obvious why a man is chosen for a given position. I am employed to earn a satisfactory return on the shareholders' investment. Is that the information you want?

--I think that is what we want. Would you then consider yourself as happily employed in making soap as in making books?

--Quite as well employed, if making soap paid the dividend.

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--While we are on this subject, may I ask you how you choose the artists who make your illustrations?

--My practice is to select an illustrator whose name is well known.

--Is that the only point you consider?

--I should say, yes. I am not aware of any other reason for spending money on this feature. It is always an uncertain detail and this way of making a choice puts the matter on a safe basis.

--It is sometimes assumed that the illustrations should have a sympathetic bearing on the story. Does not that consideration have some weight with you in choosing your artist?

--None, I should say. You see, the pictures are not really a necessary part of the book. They are a kind of frill that the public has got in the way of expecting, and we have to put them in. Illustrations as a rule stand us as a dead loss unless they are made by a well-known artist. Then, of course, they help sell the book.