The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-11
In THE LITERARY WORLD
SOME REFLECTIONS GROWING OUT
OF A BARGAIN SALE or BOOKS.
Poor Health Does Not Seem tn Inter
fere with the Making Of Literal
ture-The New Book.

A visit to one of the bargain sales of
books al any of the bookshops or large de-
partment stores may give one a novel
study in human nature, says "a writer in
the Chicago Evening Post.
There they stand-the representatives of
the vast multitude of reading civilizatio
termed 1.-The public" There are booklover,
student, child and working woman at the
noon hour, looking for something new TO
read on the way home; the man who has
built new house and wants a library, the
woman who has purchased a new book
case and wants to fill it, the idler who has
been caught by the sign above the table.
There, too, is the old man, almost patri-
arch, who saves each week from his pit
lance to buy a new book. There he stands
almost for hours, turning over the volumes,
studying through his glasses the names and
titles, the cover and binding. the popularity
of a book makes no appeal to him; he has
subject in mind and he searches until he
finds a book in accordance with it.
There stands the girl with nothing to do;
she is done with school and is tired of her
beaux and fancy work and she wants some
thing new to read. She turns the leaves
idly; she does not care about the names of
the authors; she merely wants something
to read
And when she has selected a volume a
peep within the covers will show that it
abounds with conversation"
If she should speak of the book she is
buying she will say it 'looks good"
The lover OF old books is also at the
bargain book counter. He passes over the
| books with keen eyes; he searches for
not already so; something possibly out of
print, that has become valueless to the
overcrowded shopkeeper; in his eyes the
find will be priceless.
The boy who is looking for schoolbooks
| is also there. The woman who "adores
| poems turns over the gift books. And
| there also is the woman who is looking for
popular books. The one who is purchas-
| ing red library, or green or "yel-
| low or white" one, the case may be-
| And there as well is the woman-the
| chant, who believes that knowledge is pow
! err she usually looks for volumes of
Shakespeare or George Elliott and Dickens.
| 1t is easy to surmise what she will do with
! the books she buys: she will take them
| home and place them on the tidy table in
her ''parlor, and her children will read
| them between the long hours of school and
bed time; afterward they will tell her the
Stories
| Books are decorative-that is another rea-
son why these bargain book sales are pat
| ron1zed so greatly. They are cheaper than
brlc-a-brac and vases, and they produce a
better impression on the casual visitor.
1t is a singular fact, to quote Mr.. Apple
ton again, that of the hundreds of books
| issuing from the hundreds of presses each
| year, only one in ten proves successful.
Books of fiction by new authors al
| ways considered risks" yet publishers seek
| new authors in the hope of producing some
| thing new. and not one book is produced
| that the publisher does not have faith in
| and that he does not believe will prove a
commercial success.
| Two thousand copies is the first edition
| of new authors book, and if the edition
| is disposed of the author is considered
| promising and he has no difficulty in
| placing his second book
An incentive OF producing so many
| books each year lies i'm the fact that the
| than 1t ever was before, but this is i'm a
measure offset by the heavier advertising
| necessity to make book go Notwith-
standing this, the public demand for books
| Is so great that new publishing houses
| are constantly springing up, so that the old
houses are really not producing more books
| than they did ten years ago, but the new
| houses are running in close competition to
| them in numbers-and thus the public de-
| mand is met.
1t is the author who gets rich on the
| phenomenal run of a book, while the pub
| Usher hopes only to strike average on
the hundreds of books he produces, and
he makes his money on such books as 1.-The
| Care and Feeding of Children" Household
| Needs Textbook of Nursing and 9TH
ers of like nature that are always wanted
| in the household. They sell as long as the
| house publishing them lasts. That is where
the publishers make their money, If not
| their glory
If young authors would take the advice
| of sort of book formula by of the
| leading library men of Chicago many OF
| them would reach fame quicker 1t has
| three rules.
| l. Get a story to tell.
| 3 Tell 1T we'll.
| g. Consider If ii is worth telling at all
| If they did this many of their books
might not reach the bargain counters SC
| quickly.