The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1881-08-18
. SECOND LITERARY REvoLUTIoN.

The first literary revolution consisted in the pub
licatiun of standard books in every department Of
literature, at from onethir to onefourth their for
mer cost. -
The second literary revolution consists in a still
further very great reduction lconditiona even from
the revolution prices, Thiie, AT ,ue sans .e, tne
average quality of the books will continue TO be ma
terially improved.
HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE!
To attempt impossibility conld. of course, re
suit only in failure, aad it would Ice useless, in our
own interest or in that of the many thousand Gus
TONERS who have shown us such earnest favor, and
have given such great patronage. to announce
or promise what could not be performed We have
dealt frankly with customers in giving facts con-
cernin- costs and profits in the past, and We do 1t
now by giving facts and figures illustrating how we
can afford to still further reduce prices
FACTS AND FIGURES.
Please note at the start, apology for not hav-
ing done. heretofore, what we now propose TO do,
and consider-
Is,-We published our first book only so long ago
january, 1879. Previous to that time we were en-
tircly without experience in book publishing. What
knowledge we had of the business was gained in
newspaper publishing. and in book selling.
x,sors s,ptal and u%tl G 80 late as Fesruars iss
we labored under the difficulty of being without cap
ital approximately adequate for the magnitude
Of the enterprise were undertaking.
3d-Our entire scheme in opposition to all pre-
vious methods Of publishing and bcok-eeliing And
from the beginning to tae present. We have had the
combined bitter opposition of almost the entire book
Publishing and book-sellins classes of the United
States.
4th-Starting thus, with n minimum Of knowledge,
and less capital and with such immense opposition
we thought ii best in the interest of both the read
ins public and ourselves that undertake too lit
tie rather than toosnueh partial success would be
better than total failure
5th-In spite of our want of resources and Of ex-
perienee, and in spite of opposition, and with the
necessity of organizing and training our aer Forces
and necessarily trying many experiments, all Of
which no one eonid expect would he uniformly sne-
cessful, We have. FROM january lsso. to june %.
1881 manufactured and sold nearly 1900 900 volumes
of standard books, for which have received the
considerable sum OF SOS, 5si-a2
6th-In circular, issued in January Of the present
year. made the following statement: The pub
lie have long been taught TO believe books to be
expensive luxnies aud low prices impossible, that
incredulity has from the first been the greatest OBJ
staele the progress Of the Literary Revolution. IL
was easier 90 make good books cheap than Il 10
make peaple believe it could be DONE We could
readily have made prices even lower than they have
been. but for the terrible tax We have bees com
PEELED to pay TO this ineredulify.r
We have. during this period from January ], 1850
TO June 30. 1881. paid for advertising. the large sum
Of $ii0SS93 This immense item necessarily has to
come em Of The Pryfs maae on DC books seh.