Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1920-10-30
SCHOOL BOOKS
CAUSE WORRIES
TO PUBLISHERS
Large Eastern Printeries Keep
Mammoth Stocks on Hands
Yearly.

BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

| heads of learning.
! Aside from harboring the great ana
awe inspiring Harvard University. nu-
1 merous lesser schools and endless book
/ shops specializing in all degrees Of
erud:tion, Cambridge possesses the fac
! tory of the largest schoolbook publish
! ing company in the country.
! This plant regularly keeps 2,OOO000
| schoolbooks on hand In its storage bins,
| and even with this huge reserve, the
presses have to run night and day at
| the busy seasons.
Right now, the factory is working at
! the highest pressure.
Schools from Florida to California
send to the company's offices In Boston
| for books and while most schools are
opened by this time, orders are still
piling in.
Many school officials, 1t seems, have
: a way of waiting until the term is about
| to open and then deciding on the books
to be used and the company to pat
ronize.
This casual attitude of the local
powers is one of the chief causes or
white hair In the textbook business.
No ouija board has yet been located
that can tell a firm how many physics
or spelling books Of a certain kind VIII
he called for, so II has to estimate q
| reasonable number and then work at top
speed If orders exceed expectations.
This company, with its stock Of 1000
| 600 books. finds it necessary 10 Keep
no less than 1000 different titles on
hand. and these are all what might De
called current hooks; for as soon as
text-hook becomes Anticipated or is sup
/ nlanted by a later edition the old copies
on the shelves are torn up, to be sold
/ as junk.
REMEMBER YOUR
| OLD SPELLING Bo0KT
Walking along the storage rooms you
can catch glimpses of spelling books and
| arithmetics that call up pictures OF your
early struggles with culture,
Less familiar works are here too, such
| formidable affairs as The Application
| of Calculus to Mechanics Word For
nation In the Roman Sermo Plebeius,'
and "a Grammar OF the lunuit Lam
zuage."
| The guide obligingly explains Innuit
means Eskimo; that this particular work
/ Is rarely called for, and that II sells
| for s.. an unusually high rate for
plainly bound school book.
/ Books of this type are the 'Jonahs"
| Of the school book business. Some pa
| tient scholar spends perhaps twenty
! years writing an abstruse thesis on
/ which neither he nor his publisher can
| possibly make any money, because Few
copies win be sold.
Yet the demands Of advanced scholar
| ship require such books. and the larger
publishers must be the ones to produce
( them. even though they often know In
advance that the books mean a loss.
Ponderous works. however make up
! only a small fraction OF the plants out
| put.
The bins for the most part are stacked
/ to the ceiling with ordinary grammar
/ and high school books.
/ The demand sor schoolbooks increases
every YER, and this means plenty OF
/ trade for the publishers.
/ They tell you. though, they are far
from sailing on smooth seas OF pros
( perity.
Certain kinds OF paper are about 10
advance cents a pound. which means
/ the rates on schOolbooks will go up. as
/ II is claimed they are now being sold on
as low q margin OF profit as is per-
missible
/ An advance win not cut down business.
/ for schoolbooks are a necessity. but pub
/ fishers say they dread announcing a
raise. for the public, seeing sugar, leather
/ and wool drop is ali the more lOath TO
part with larger sums for other com
modities.
In the past. they say. schooIbooks
have remained remarkably stable In
price though publishers have been con
stantly increasing expenditures TO I'm
prove the appearance of their product
TROUBLES A-PLENTY
FOR PUBLISHERS.
Few people have any idea OF the ms
and outs Of putting n textbook on the
market. You may have paused to smile
over the fancy that school children now
/ have more history to assimilate than
when you pored over dates and battles.
/ but did you ever think OF the schooibook
| producer who has to keep up with the
wandering boundaries Of Europe and
reduce the world war to a few pages
| of text in language suitable for chill
dren?
| Did you know, for instance, the more
| progressive publishers are having their
Biographies practically rewritten since
the war in order to bring, not only the
maps, but the text, up to date?
An editor OF the Arm referred TO IN
This story says his company spent about
| 500 600 before a single copy Of It's new
est geography could be printed.
! Now the book Is being run OF the
| presses as rapidly as possible, and the
! firm cannot begin to I'LL the demand
| for 1t.
| Producing schoolbooks is in many ways
/ entirely different from publishing action.
/ A best seller novel that would require
| IN Investment Of three or four thousand
/ dollars and sell for 81 8 copy, mas a
| boom Of a few months and then sizzles
! down to cheap editions and soon fades
/ out Of sight and memory.
| The returns are immediate and brief,
4 and the author is then expected TO grind
| out a new masterpiece.
! The initial cost OF a history. such as
Is used in high schools, on the other
hand, is over five times as much, and
geography twenty five times as much,
| as the novel, because of numerous maps
and illustrations.
| Yet the price of the textbook Is similar
or less than that Of the novel.
TAKES YEARS FOR BOOK
TO PAY FOR ITSELF.
In the case of an up-to-date geography,
which just now would he a. best seller,
the large outlay might be quickly offset
| by sales, but In the ordinary run Of
things, 1t is year or more before a
| textbook begins to pay for ITSELF
Then, II brings in to its author and
the publisher steady returns for FIVE
| years, or possibly twenty five, according
to its lasting qualities.
That is, a first reader is apt to be pop
ular only few years because new meth
DDS of teaching reading are constantly
being worked out
A mathematics book is more likely to
have long and prosperous existence.
| The Wentworth algebras and other