New-York tribune., 1920-07-25


their lists from whose books they ex-
pected to make fortunes, while the
writers made regulations. One Of them
had Thomas Hardy, while the other had
w. E. Norris, and each thought the
other had the winner. The result was
that, as a sporting proposition, they
traded. The house that traded w. E.
Norris for Thomas Hardy has made
large sums from Hardy's books, while
w. E. Norris has gone from the twi-
light zone into the outer darkness.
Ralph Mayhew was another gamble.
Mayhem was a clerk in the advertising
department of Harper's. Several years
ago he conceived the idea Of writing
some jingles for children and insert
ing in the book with the jingles two
or three phonograph records Of the
jingles set to music. He called the
idea "The Bubble Book" and talked
about it so much that his fellow clerks
sidestepped him at luncheon and
other convivial times. After six or
seven years Of continual harping on
"The Bubble Book one Of tho men
higher up in Harper's said 1t would
be good thing to print an edition of
1900 copies of the book, so that the
other men in the Office could get . rest.
"The Bubble Book" is now in It's elev-
enth edition and the sales this year
are estimated at 100000 copies. May
hew, drawing many thousands year in
royalties, continues meekly and humbly
at his desk in the advertising depart
ment Of Harpers.
Then Take Sonnichsen
On the other hand, there Is the case
Of Albert Sonnichsen. Sonnichsen was
Swede born in San Francisco, who was
known to his friends as Little Sum-
shine" on account of his glowing head
of hair. He ran away to sea and sailed
to all the we'll known ports of the world
and most Of the obscure ones. Ulti-
mately Sonnichsen wound up In the
Philippines and took part in the first
campaign against Aguinaldo. Coming
back to America, he wrote an exhaus-
tive and authoritative book on the
Philippines, and Scribner's published
it and had faith enough in Sonnichsen
and his book to advance him $500 on
his prospective royalties.
Little Sunshine" was nothing but
enthusiasm. He planned to buy a farm
in Sullivan County and settle his
father and mother on it, while he would
divide his time between the farm, where
he would write. and the wide world,
where he would gather material for his
future books. AS it was verging on
summer, he sent the $500 to his mother
and himself got job as lifesaver at
one of the Long Island beaches until
it should be time to collect some more
royalties.
In August Sonnichsen came up to
town with friend. They started early
and arrived about luncheon time. They
were broke.
eve will go over to Scribners," said
Sonnichsen, "where will collect some
royalties, and then we will have a good
lunCHSOn.
They went to Scribner's and the
friend waited on the sidewalk while
Sonnichsen went up to the cashiers de-
partment- He came down in about
twenty minutes and the friend said:
"Well, let's eat" and Sonnichsen said,
81 owe them 5000"
A few months later. becoming IN
tensely interested in the submerged
nationalities of the Near East, Sonnich-
sen put a lot of discriminating docu-
ments in his pocket and sailed for Con-
stantinople In search of Essad Pasha,
who was then in rebellion against Tur-
key. The Turks met him on the dock
and took him down into q damp cellar
Essad.
Margaret Hill McCarter, the first
woman to make q speech at national
political convention, wrote thin, small
book called "The Peace Of the Solomon
Valley" which ran into many editions
and many thousands Of copies. After
the book was published the editor Of an
extremely popular magazine wrote to
her substantially as follows:
"Why don't you send US some Of your
delightful writings? We are sure you
can do other things equally as good as
The Peace Of the Solomon Valley,
and 1t would give us great pleasure to
present them to the readers Of this
magazine, besides which we pay we'll"
Mrs. McCarter replied substantially,
''You were the first publishers to whom
I sent The Peace of the Solomon VAL
ley 1t came back by return mail"
Less of Gamble
The publishers have taken thought
of the conditions under which they
do business and they are going to try
to make book publishing less of
gamble and more of business. Since
advertising was invented they have
confined their publicity to the only peo-
pie they don't need to reach, that is to
say, their advertising has been written
exclusively for the people who buy
books anyway. They are now going to
get under way general "Buy Books"
campaign, intended not to advertise
any particular publisher or group of
publishers or any particular book or
kind of book, but only to create