Chapter II: MR. McG

A: The gentlemen of the committee must remember that the book-publishing business is a gamble. Each new issue, particularly in the department of fiction, is a highly adventurous risk. Our percentage of blanks would astonish you if we dared to state it. But any book may turn out a best-seller. This hope keeps us going. It is absolutely a gamble, as I say. You can see that under these conditions we cannot spend very much money on non-essentials. We have to strip the books down to the barest necessities.

Personally I should like to see the firm put out nothing that is not well designed and well printed. But as an agent of the firm I have to set aside my personal preferences. The directors are very much down on what they call art.

--Has the firm ever looked into the question of good workmanship as a possible aid to sales?

--Not under the present management. The founder looked at good work as more or less a marketing advantage.

--What do you think caused the present management to change from that opinion?

--They haven't changed. They never had it. They get at the matter from another angle altogether. Their policy is to reduce the production cost to the minimum. The minimum in theory would be reached when the public complained. The public hasn't complained, so you can't tell when to stop cheapening.

You see the directors don't look at a book as a fabricated thing at all. Books are merely something to sell--merchandise. Our management--and all the rest of them, for that matter--come from the selling side of the business and do not have any pride in the product. Old Mr. ---- was a publisher because he liked books. That made an entirely different policy in the old firm, of course.

--To get back to the question of good workmanship helping sales:--Here are two books published abroad to be sold at 50 cents and 80 cents. They can very well be called works of art. Do you not think that these well designed paper covers would stand out among other books and invite customers to themselves?

--Undoubtedly they would.

--Have you ever tried the experiment of putting out editions in paper covers of attractive design?

--Never. It couldn't be done. People wouldn't buy them.

--But you said a moment ago--

--Moreover the difference of cost between cheap cloth sides and paper covers of the kind you have there is so slight that it wouldn't pay to try the experiment. People want stiff board covers. It doesn't much matter what is inside, but they insist on board covers.

--How do you arrive at that fact?

--Through our salesmen.

--And you say that paper covers have never been tried?

--Never. None of our travellers would go out on the road with a sample in paper covers.

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--A little while ago you said something about your salesmen helping you to an understanding of the public taste. I infer that you get considerable help from this source?

--Most valuable help indeed. We depend entirely on the reports the sales force turns in in these matters. The salesmen are in direct contact with the retailers and are naturally in a position to feel the public pulse, so to speak. Their help is invaluable. They can anticipate the demand very often.

I had reference more particularly to the way books are made.

--Oh, on that point too. We never make a final decision on a cover design, for instance, without showing it to the salesmen. They very often make valuable suggestions as to changes of colour, etc. They run largely to red.

--It would seem, then, that the designing of the books is very much in the hands of the salesmen?

--Quite in their hands.

--Are the office-boys often called into consultation?

--Mr. ---- finds his stenographer a very great help in passing upon certain points--illustrations, etc.

--Does it appear to you that the sales department would be the one best qualified to pass on points of design?

--Well, there, you see--the books have to be sold--that is what we make them for--and the sales department is the one in closest touch with the people that buy the books--that knows just what they want.

--The standards of quality, then, are set by the people who buy the books?

--Oh, absolutely so. How else would you move the books? It is a merchandising proposition, you must remember.

--But do you not think that people would buy decently made books as willingly as poorly made books?

At the same price, yes. No question about it. The book-buying public doesn't worry its head about the way books are made. It doesn't know anything about it. And well made books cost more. The trade is committed to a dollar-and-a-half article and can't risk going above it.

--Your opinion is that the price of a well made book would be so high as to prevent its sale?

--In the case of fiction, yes. The price has become almost a fixture.

--We shall have to go outside of fiction, then, to look for well made books?

--It amounts to that.

--You have said that certain unproductive factors prevent you from spending what you otherwise might on good workmanship. What specific factors would you mention?

--Plates--electros. We plate everything on the chance of its running into several printings. 80 per cent of the books are not reprinted. You can see that the money tied up in plates is a very considerable sum, and, as I say, 80 per cent of it is dead loss. We are obliged to take the chance, however.

--Has any remedy occurred to you?

--If stereotyping could be revived as an accurate process it might help us out. It would cost much less to make and to store paper matrices than to make electrotypes. The difficulty here is that no one knows how to make good stereotypes, and the stereotype plates at their best are more trouble to make ready. Trouble with the press-room, you see.

--Is it possible under good conditions to get satisfactory results from stereotype plates?

--Unquestionably. The books printed from this kind of plates in the first days of the invention are entirely satisfactory.