Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-08-18
A SECOND LITERARY REvO-
LUTON.

LUTON.
The first literary revolution consisted in th'
publication Of standard books III every deDart
III .ns Of literature as from Oue-third TO one
teEth OF their forme cost.
The secoad LIT erafy revolution 20 assists In
still further very great rejncsU Eco iditfonal
Even from the revolution p :. while, AZ th'
same time, the AVERAGE Qnsiuty OF Sue oooA'
will continue tn be- IN ateriaIls imDruv ~.
HOW CAN THESE THINGS BEL
To attempt an i'm possio litv could OF course
result only In failure, and IT so AID ne uSeie 70,
cur own interest, or in that o. tue MANY thou
sand customers who have sho IN US euch Earn
est favor, and have given Us such great patron
aye 80 announce or promise what could not ~
performed. We have de ut frankly with GU
customers in giving facts concerning cose
and profits in the past, an we do 1t now. ol
giving facts aud figures illustrating how w
Can afford 20 still further reduce prizes.
FACTS iND FIGURES.
Please note, aG the start, y r. apology Tor moi
having done heretofore what We now propose
to do, and consider:
ist-We published onr first book only &c
lony ago as January, 1879. Previous TO that
time we were entirely without experience in
book publishing. What knowledge We had OF
the business was gained In newspaper pub
li-hing, and in bOOk-selling.
Give were also at that time almost entirely
without capital. and until SO late AS February
1881 We lsbored under the d I'll Guilty OF being
without capital even approximately adequate
for the magnitude OF the enterprise we were
undertaking.
3d-Our entire scheme was in opposition &c
all previous methods of publishing ami book.
selling And from the beginning to the present
we have had the combined Otter opposition OF
almost the entire book publishing and book
selling classes Of the United States.
4th-Starting thus, with minimum OF knowl.
edge, and less capital. and with such immense
opposition. we thought it best, in the interest o:
both tic reading public and ourselves, that we
undertake too little, rather tnan too much par
tial success would be better than total failure.
5th-In spite of our want of resources and OF
experience, and in spite of opposition, aid
with the necessity OF organizing and training
our new forces, and necessarily trying many
would be uniformly successful, we have from
January l, 1889, to June 80, 1891, manufac-
tured and sold nearly 2 OJU.OJ0 volumes of
standard books, for which we have received
the considerable sum of $709 521 80.
6th-In circular issued in January OF the
present year we made the following statement:
THE public have SO long been taught to believe
books to be expensive luxuries and low prices
impossible, that ncreduality has from the first
been the greatest obstacle to the progress Of
the Literary Revolution. 1t was easier to
make good books cheap than 1t was to make
people believe it could be done. We could
readily have made prices even lower than they
have been, but for the terrible tax we have
been compelled to pay to this incredulity."
We have during this period, from January L,
1880, to June 80 1881. paid for Advertising, the
large sum of r140 SiS 93. This immense item
necessarily has IT, come out of the profits we
make on the books sold.
7th-Although our scheme originally en-
bodied the principle OF selling directly to the
consumer, and doing away with the exornltant
cost of middlemen, we have not undertaken to
put aside the book -seller and the book agent
altogether, because large portion of the book
buyers of the country have got into the habit of
looking to them for their supplies. 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 (the immensely in
the smaller commissions, really give the book
seller larger net profit than he formerly had)
Accordingly, we have during this period, from
January l. 1880 to June 80, 1881, allowed to the
booksellers and book agents commissions av-
eraging about IS per cent OF our total receipts
In other words, in addition to the 500 521. SO
we have received from the public for our books,
the public has alsO paid to the mi1dlemen the
large sum of $177, SO simply for handling
books to the consumer 1886 9O1 IS.
Sth-From these statements you can readily
see that If
From the total amount
which the public has
paid for our books. 1856 901 IS
We deduct the amount
we have paid for ad-
vertising these books, $140, S7S.93
And the amount paid
to middemen for
handling the books. .$177 $50 80
We have . total reduction Of :. =. .31S, 259. 26
And remainder Of ............ 1868. 642 80
Thus 1t is evident that II the public had bought
these books directly from us, the unnecessary
expenses Of advertising, and OF paying middle
men for handling them, being avoided, tn.
books would have cost them only 1858, 642 80,
being almost 80 per cent less than the 1885,
9O1. IS which they have paid for them, and our
net proceeds would have been none tie less.
BETTER ILLUSTRATION.
The above figures show clearly the possibil-
ity of great reduction from our prices as
heretofore given without diminishing our net
income. but they do no. necessarily show that
1t Is possible for us to manufacture and sell
hooks at such low prices without loss to US.
AS we have never made preteuse of publishing
books from charitable or philanthropic mo-
tives. and do Lot wish our friends to think we
are doing business at loss, we will give a
cOnclu sIve and interesting illustration of how
We Can afford theee low prices.
LIBRARY OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE.
After a labor of nearly two years by an able
corps ofAmerican editors and writer's. for whose
services we have paid nearly 10000, we have
within the brief period Of less than len months
made electrotyps plates for the Library Of
Universal knowledge at further cost of
nearly &5O, 900. making a total investment on
this work Of about $4,000. This labor all be-
ing done and paid Tor, the Is large octave
volumes, making the largest Cycloped a ever
published In this country. can be manufac-
tured at cost per set of Is volumes Of
For paper. ......-......... So 50
FeI pelnuns...... s6
xor = 70 re-
Theee electrotype plates winch we hav. man-
ufactured will readily print 100 600 copies and
then by slight repairing will print from 81. COZ
to 100, 900 additional copies. but to make our
estimate absolutely safe we will assume that
It will be necessary to manufacture a new set