The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-29
THE LITERARY OUTLOOK.
ADVERTISING BOOKS A RECENTLY
DEVELOPED ART.

Closing of the Spring Season-Biog-
raphy of Bret Harte 10 He Written
by an Englishman-KipIi to the
Front Again. His Recent Work.
What Did Booth Harrington Mean
when He said He Was Tired of
society-A Blow to the Baconians.
BY Herbert Brewster.
Advertising of books has come to be
such an art--a business in itself-that
recent joke comes very near being
the truth.
"who is the best fiction writer on
the list of Pushem & Sellum. the pub
lishers?" asks one.
1.-THE man who writes the advertise
ments for their books" replies an
other.
1t is not generally known that one
of the leading firms among the book
publishers in this country does all of
it's publicity through firm of adver-
Using agents. The entire time of sew
eral men in this advertising concern Is
taken up in writing the copy. furnish
ing the illustrations and supplying
ideas for the typographical display,
and so large has the publicity depart
ment of this particular book house
grown that the head of the employed
advertising company is said to have
acquired a considerable amount of the
book stock in part return for his ser
vices and expenditures. The outcome
of this arrangement and of similar de-
velopments in advertising of books will
be watched with much interest.
AS a matter of fact. the publishers
are beginning to realize that the most
important part of the publishing bust
ness is publicity. AS one publisher re-
marked the other day, a book is not
really published until the reading pub
| lie knows of it's existence, and the mat
| ter of making the reading public cog
infant of one title or a few titles out
of several thousand is, as has been
| pointed out-an art in itself. Truly
must the writer's of the publishers an
| nouncements be gifted with the vivid
imagination of novelists. These men
publicity men, they call them-are a
most interesting people. 1t is the bust
| ness of each one to write such mat
| ter that the papers are glad to print
as news. He must keep a chronicle of
J the doings of the we'll known authors
whose books his firm is publishing. He
| is continually in search of new ideas
| in the straight advertising of his wares.
| More and more does the advertising
| of books approach that of commod-
| ity-books are goods to the average
! dealer which are to be sold for profit.
| One day recently I heard the chance
remark: There is a bookseller who
actually reads the books which he rec
| ommends or tries to SELL" but such a
man, of course, reads all of the books
he advertises, but, unfortunately, he
reads these through rose-colored
glasses and not with the same critical
| goggles as he uses for the imprints of
| his rivals. 1t is the very fact of the
| excellence of the art of book publicity,
/ however, which has made book buyers
sceptical in regard to statements of
the publishers.
The present week witnessed the
grinding out of the last few books
from the mills of the publishers so
far as spring, 1902, is concerned. There
has been perhaps a greater abundance
of serious books than in any previous
spring season. A few popular novel
books have been launched since the
present season began, but no one book
has made a great place. Emerson
Hough's THE Mississippi Bubble" and
! Conan Doyle's THE Hound of the
Baskervilles" have taken the lead, and
there have been many of the last
years books which have kept up
good sale.
Through the deaths of Frank Stock
ton, Paul L. Ford and Bret Harte,
American letters has suffered mate
rial loss. Bret Harte, as the pioneer
short story writer, had welded an in
fiuence difficult to estimate. Kipling.
who is still ranked greatest of the
clan. acknowledges that he owes much
to Bret Harte. Consciously or other
wise, the same influence worked upon
the long line of short writers who
have made fame and fortune-not only
for themselves, but for magazine and
book publishers as well-since Harte
began.
An authorized life of Bret Harte is
now being prepared by T. Z. Pember-
ton, dramatic critic of the Birmingham
(Eng.) Post and biographer of numer-
Gus actors-Sothern, John Hare, Rob-
ertson, the Kendalls, etc. 1t seems
that Mr.. Pemberton was closely as