The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-06-29
THE
LITERARY
OUTLOOK
~ Herbert Brewsterl

(By Herbert Brewster.l
A DvERTIsING Of books has come
a to be such an aria business in
itself-that a 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.
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 pub
I fishers in this country does all of its
publicity through firm of advertising
agents. The entire time of several
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 department
of this particular book house grown
that the head of the employed adver
Using company is said to have acquired
a considerable amount Of the book
stock in part return for his services
and expenditures. The outcome of this
/ arrangement and Of similar develop
ments 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 its existence, and the mat
/ ter of making the reading public cog
/ infant of one title or few titles out Of
several thousand is, as has been point
/ ed oUt-an art in itself. Truly must
/ the writer's of the publishers announce
ments be gifted with the vivid imagin-
alton Of novelists. These men-public-
I ity men, they call them-are a most in
teresting people. It is the business Of
each one to write such matter that the
papers are glad to print as news. He
must keep a chronicle Of the doings
of the well known authors whose books
his firm is publishing. He is continu-
/ ally in search of new ideas in the
/ straight advertising Of his wares. More
and more does the advertising of books
approach that of q cOmmodity-bOoks
are goods to the average dealer which
are to be sold for profit. One day re-
/ Gently l heard the chance remark:
1 There is a bookseller who actually
/ reads the books which he recommends
or tries to SELL, but such a man is
rare. The publicity 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 impTints Of his rivals. It
/ is the very fact OF the excellence of the
/ art of book publicity. however, which
/ has made book buyers skeptical in re-
gard 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 Mississippi Bubble" and
Conan Doyle's The Hound of the
Baskeryilles" 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 material
loss. Bret Harte, as the pioneer short
story writer, has welded an influence
difficult to estimate. Kipling. who is
still ranked greatest of the clan, ac-
knowledges that hezowes much to Bret
Harte Consciously or otherwise. the
same influence worked upon the long
line of short story writer's 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 7. z. Pember-
ton, dramatic critic pf the Birmingham
| (Eng.) Post and biographer of numer-
Gus actors-SothsrTf John Hare, Rob-
! ertson the Kendalls, etc. 1t seems
that Mr. Pemberton was closely asso-
ciated with Mr.. Harte as collaboration
| in several dramatic pieces, so that his
/ selection as biOgTapher of Harte may
| have been the authors personal choice.
! II will be a matter of regret that an
/ American who has come in contact
/ with the life of the west as Harte knew
/ it was not chosen for the biographical
work. Notwithstanding the fact that
/ Harte had become thoroughly identi-
/ fed with English manners and Gus
/ toms, it was the early California life
+ which gave him material for the stories
4 which made the greatest success for
/ him. Someone has suggested that
/ Mark Twain would have been just the
man for the place. He certainly knew
1 the life of early California mining
/ camps-he knew Harte in those days
| he continued for years an intimate &C
/ quaintanceship, and for a considerable
! time he was a fellow American trans
planted to English soil.
{ Il ~rg-- IN