The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-08 00:00:00

PUBLISHING IN JAPAN.

In an article on the above subject, the Japan Weekly
Mail, after remarking that the forms of procedure in book-
publishing seem to be nearly the same in Japan as in most
other countries, says :

A well-known publisher and bookseller in the capital
has furnished us with the following figures, which may
be of interest to some readers. The expenses of pub-
lishing a small book of eighty Japanese pages, rather
smaller than 32m0., are as follows :—Copying manu-
script for the press, 4.00 yen; cost of copper plates,
14.00 yen • cost of cutting copper plates, 30.00 yen;
fee to scholar for writing preface' 5.00 yen; cost of
wrapper, 0.90; total, 53.90 yen.. All that remains is
the printing and binding. The cost of these items, in-
cluding the price of paper, was seven yen for every
hundred copies of the work. Five hundred copies were
printed at first, and the total cost was thu; brought up
to 88.90 yen, or nearly eighteen sea per copy. The
published price was thirty yen, and the book was put
on the market at twenty-three and half sen, thus giving
the author a profit of about six sen for each volume. As
a matter of fact, on a sale of one thousand copies the
author, we were informed, received eighty yen—by no
means an encouragement to him to re-enter the thorny
paths of literature. One noticeable item in the fore-
going account is that of - payment to a scholar for
writing the preface. It is almost a universal custom in
Japan to employ some person of reputation, generally
as a scholar, to commend a work to readers; and with
some scholars this has become a reguar trade.
Ten thousand copies is considered an excellent cir-
culation for an ordinary work, but some ele-
mentary school books have a sale of a quarter of a
million. Certain books, such as the "Nihon Guaishi"
and the "Jiuhashiriaku "—both histories—are always
in demand, for they are classical works. Books on
style, as well as translations or abridgements of
foreign works, sell best at present, though the demand
for the latter is said to have decreased greatly during
the last two years. The property in some works is
very valuable. Thus,
_.the right to issue a single
edition of the "Nihon Guaishi " costs three thousand
yen, and this does not give the purchaser the exclu-
sive right in the book even for a limited period. In
recent years, the work having the largest circulation
has been one by the well-known scholar Fukusawa.
It is a kind of encyclopmdia of foreign countries, and
was published in the early years of the present reign.
The reason for its popularity is that thirst for know-
ledge of foreign countries which was, and is, potent
among the reading classes.
The introduction of moveable type and paper of
foreign manufacture is gradually working a revolution
in the printing establishment of old Japan. The vast
majority of new books are now printed on foreign
paper—on both sides of the page—and bound in boards,
but it is doubtful whether the old system can ever be
entirely displaced by its modern rival. Modern
changes have not been in all respects advantageous
to the literary classes—or rather to the purveyors of
literature. In the old days, daimios and other wealthy
or influential men in Japan contributed munificently
to the support of men of arts and letters, as well as to
the issue of their works ; but we fear there are few
:INlcenw of this description now remaining. It is
therefore to be wished that the facilities and en-
couragements to literary men to publish their
researches could be rendered greater by better
chances of emolument. There are numbers of
learned men of the old school whom modern advance
and changes have put on the shelf, who would be
doing the country a service, and supporting becomingly
their former positions, by recording their personal
and traditional experiences of the arts and events of
the past. Men of this class are employed on a small
pittance by the few foreigners who attempt to acquire
even a moderate knowledge of the Japanese language.
Certain trades and arts being hereditary, and there
being hitherto no treatises on many interesting
skilled employments, which are now fast passin,g
away, there is still plenty of work for those old
scholars to do in transmitting to future generations
exact records of the arts, sciences, sports, &c., of an
ancient and erudite civilization.