The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1888-10-27
WAYS OF BooK-AGENTS.
They Do a Rushing Business and Often
Accumulate Snug Fortunes.

They Do Rushing Business and Often
Accumulate Snug Fortunes.
If any one by chance, having nothing
better to do, should read this article,
let them not be possessed of the spirit
of restless ambition. Not every man
can succeed as book agent If you
know all the best books by heart (and
you do'nOt); if you have passion for
literature; and if you can expOund-
none so wisely as you-on the merits
of a catalogue of authors, you thereby
afford no proof of your own merit as a
canvasser. Does the wisest critic enact
Hamlet, or paint Madonna? Not by
so much as ''cue," or shadow of a
hair. And the most successful of book
sellers may be the least of book-read-
ers. Some of them are. There is a
man who stands high in his calling of
book-agent, who could not tell you
whether Shakespeare or Lord Byron
wrote "a Midsummer Nights Dream"
There is a clever fellow who sells sets
of Thackeray and other leaders of the
century's fiction, and he could not for
his LIES sake tell you in what
book to find Colonel Newcome, or
whether Becky Sharp figures in DAN
iel Deronda" or VANITY Fair" and
yet this same solicitor earns as large an
income as Rev. Phillips Brooks. What
then is the principal requirement in
Al n
else.
Subscription books are the money
makers. And the higher the price
the better for master agent His COM
mission is a goodly percentage-it
would be revealing a sacred secret of
the trade to tell how much-and if lie
finds half dozen customers a day,
he is more than satisfied. With some
books, three or four customers a day
are sufficient unto his needs, which
are never modest.
Within the last decade the subscrip-
ton book trade has grown to enor-
nous proportions. But the harvest is
reaped by publishers and agents, be-
cause, as a general thing, there are no
authors rights to be considered.
Editions are prepared of works that
are open to all corners. To be sure,
there are occasions when living
authors or their heirs find the subscrip-
ton field rich one. General Grants
book and Mr.. Blaine's Twenty Years
of Congress are cases in point. But
Dickens, Scott and Thackeray lead in
the order named. Ten years ago a
New Yorker started in the business of |
publishing and selling Dickens works
by subscription. He is now million
aire. One agent, a young man, has
sold 5000 sets of Dickens's works in
two years. AS subscription books sell |
at higher price than their fellows !
that are to be bought in the shops-not |
infrequently at so per cent. advance !
the source of profit is evident. For all |
that, one has yet to hear of the sub |
scription-book buyer who grumbles at
the price. Ten chances to one he |
rarely enters book shop. In these |
rushing days people want every thing
brought to them-meats, vegetables
and books not excepted-and for the
privilege they have to pay. This is a
that follows naturally
upon the possession of privileges.
Novels are the best selling books,
and there are but few cases in which it
does not hold that the novels of dead
sell better than those of the
living. Dickens, Scott and Thackeray
hold their own against all corners, and
here, at least, it will be seen that
the world pays some heed to the
advice: ''When a new book is pub
lished read an old one" Some authors
Mark Twain is one of them) own their
plates" and publish for themselves,
out the stamp of success is required
before man can venture upon that sea
If enterprise. E. p Roe's books sell
Vt a prodigious rate. Lew Wallace has
he satisfaction of knowing that one of
lis books-"Ben Hur'-has been sold
o over 200, 900 readers, and more than
hat, he has the supreme satisfaction
If solid proceeds. But ''Ben-Hur" was
when first put on the mar
let. The copies lay in the bool1-shops
lncalled for and undisturbed in 1880.
)ne Boston establishment alone has
odd over 1000 copies of the book
ince then, and the demand still in
,reases. Happy author, to whom such
comes while he is still
dive and in the enjoyment of all his
happy, too, in knowing that
IN edition of his book has been pre-
pared for which as many people can
ret them are willing to pay $40 a copy.
Boston Herald.