Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1881-08-17


the publication of standard books in every
! department of literature at from one-third
| to one-tenth of their former cost.
The second literary revolution consists il
| a still further very great reduction <cond
| tionaD even from the revolution prices
while, at the same time, the average qualit.
of the books will continue to be material!
| improved.
HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE?
| result in failure, and it would be useless, il
our own interest, or in that of the man!
! thousand customers who have shown us sucl
earnest favor, and have given us such grea1
patronage, to announce or promise wha,
could not be performed. We have deal
frankly with our customers in giving facts
concerning costs and profits in the past, and
we do it now, by giving facts and figures
illustrating how we can afford to still further
reduce prices.
FACTS AND FIGURES.
Please note, at the start, our apology tol
not having done heretofore what we now
propose to do, and consider
1st-We published our first book only sc
AOA6 &c 90 o"AA0Ays Aos"' ASSAouo ~ SAAa
time We were entirely without experience in
the book publishing. What knowledge we
had of the business was in newspaper pub.
fishing, and in bookselling.
2d-We were also at that time almost en-.
tirely without capital, and until 50 late as
February, 1881, we labored under the difficulty
of being without capital even approximately
adequate for the magnitude of the enterprise
we were undertaking.
3d-Our entire scheme was in opposition to
all previous methods of publishing and book
selling. And from the beginning to the pres
ent, we have had the combined bitter opposi-
ton of almost the entire book-publishing and
book-selling classes of the United States
illustrating thus, with a minimum of
knowledge, and less capital, and with such
immense opposition, we thought it best, in
the interest of both the reading public and
ourselves, that we undertake too little, rather
than too much; partial success would be
better than total failure.
5th-In spite of our want of resources and
Of experience, and in spite of opposition, and
with the necessity of organizing and training
our 1lew forces, and necessarily trying many
experiments, all of which no one could ex-
pect would be uniformly successful, we have
from January l, 1880, to June 80, 1881, manu-
featured and sold nearly 100000 volumes of
standard books, for which we have received
the considerable sum of 500 ,52l.32.
6th-1n circular issued in January of the
present year we made the following state
ment: ''The public have so long been taught
to believe books to be expensive luxuries and
n ny INN Gil hot 1,,l;< v1N1>
from the first been the greatest obstacle to
the progress Of Literary Revolution. 1t was
easier to make good books cheap than it was
to make peopla believe that it could be done.
We could readily have made prices even
lower than they have been, but for the terri
BILE tax we have been compelled to pay to this
incredulity.''
We have during this period, from January
l, 1880, to June 30, 1881, paid for advertising,
the large sum of $14O,s7S.93. This immense
item necessarily has to come out of the profits
oUe make on the books sold.
7th-Although our scheme originally en-
bodied the principal Of selling directly to the
consumer, and doing away with the exorbit-
ant cost of middlemen. we have not under
taken to put aside the bookseller and the
ton of the book-buyers of the country have
got into the habit of looking to them for their
and if we were to>supply the wants
Of such customers at all, we were compelled
to do it through these ordinary channels.
But we have endeavored to induce or compel
these middlemen to work, as we have been
doing, on a more reasonably small percentage
of profit 1.-THE immensely increased sales at
reduced prices, even with the smaller COM
missions, really give the booksellers larger
net profit than he formerly had) According
ly, we have during this period, from January
l, 1880, to June 30, 1881, allowed to the book
sellers and book-agents commissions averag-
ing about rs per cent. of our total receipts.
In other words, in addition to the S7O9, 52l.32
we have received from the public for our
books, the public has also paid to the middle
men the large sum of l77,8s033 simply for
these books, making the total cost
of the books to the consumer 38S6, 90l.65
8th-FrOm these statements you can readily
see that If
From the total amount
which the public has
paid for our books :. $896, 90l.65
We deduct the amount
we have paid for adj
vertising these books SAC, 878.93
And the amount paid
to middlemen for
handling the books. 177,3S0.33
We have total deduction off,. 3laMe28
And remainder of. .$588, 1889
Thus it is evident that if the public had
bought these books directly from Us, the I'M
expenses Of advertising. and of
for handling them being avoided.
the books would have cost them only $685.