Book agent

“ In short, the agent takes off the author's shoulders all the business end of publishing, leaving him free to devote himself to his own proper vocation without the vexatious business worries which he finds all the more vexatious because he has not had any training or experience in coping with them.
I think the literary agent can be, and as time goes on, will be, of increasing use to the publisher. The literary agent, if he understands his business, takes up no manuscript in which he does not believe. ”

“ The customer signs an order blank, which the agent turns over to the publisher, who makes the delivery and collects the money. To cover the entire country, the large publisher establishes branch offices in many different cities or sells his books to so-called "general agents," who secure their own canvassers.
(p. 340) It may be asked, why does such a method exist? Do not people know enough to go to the book stores and ask for what they want? And why go to a man and urge him to buy a book he does not want? The answer goes deep into human nature. ”

“ The writer whose output is regular and whose work is in demand has an almost daily letter to receive from his agent. There is the question of a serial for this or that paper, an editor wants a short story, a publisher is writing impatient letters to the agent for a book that is overdue, “close times” for various books have to be arranged so that they do not clash between various publishers—he is confronted every day with an infinity of detail which even such an experienced and assiduous agent as I myself am fortunate to possess cannot save him. ”

“ The last I heard of the young man in question, he was trying to eke out a miserable existence as a book agent while he was looking about for a position somewhere with the Government as a janitor or for some other equally humble occupation. ”

“ The so-called English agent must be an English publisher. On the day appointed for publication, the English agent must make formal sale of at least one copy of the volume, and the entry of such sale must appear upon his books. ”

“ The fact that the average author is not versed in business detail has brought into being the literary agent, [1] who offers to stand between the author and his so-called natural enemy, the publisher. There is no doubt that frequently the efforts of these literary agents result in temporary pecuniary advantage to the author, but the common consensus of opinion is that in the long run the author will best serve his own ends by co-operating with his publisher, rather than by employing any intermediary. ”

“ We want every Bookseller, and every News Agent, everywhere, to sell our books, and to keep an assortment of them on hand, and to send to us at once for a copy of our New Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue, which look over carefully, marking what books you may want, as it contains a list of all books published by us, all or any of which will be sold by us to everybody in the Book Trade, to Booksellers, or to News Agents, at very low rates. There are no books published you can sell as many of, or make as much money on, as Petersons'. ”

“ If you take hold, I’ll have him give you a regular lesson, and also give you a pamphlet I issue, called: Aids to Successful Book Selling.”
“I suppose you issue a great number of books for agents?”
“I have issued a great many during the past fourteen years. But at present I have only four books which I would advise you to try to handle. ”

“ In conclusion the writer believes that the agent, as he has tried to indicate, can perform a definite and valuable service to both author and publisher by helping the author to bring his wares to the man who will publish them most advantageously, and by obtaining for the author the prices that such wares are worth in the open market, and he can help the publisher by acting as a sifter and bringing before the publisher and editor manuscripts that are really worthy of consideration. ”

“ In one, as a book or patent agency, the agent works for one or two persons at a fixed commission and needs no capital. In the other, as that of servants and of supply companies, the agent is also in a certain sense a principal; he obeys no one’s orders, fixes his own commissions, and makes his profits directly from the public. Here are a few points for agents:
287. Book Agency.—The book agency depends partly upon the kind of book, but chiefly upon the kind of man. The right man selling the right book can make enormous wages. ”

“ But the point is, few book-agents sell124 new books, and few of them sell single books: they usually sell books in sets. The problem, therefore, of the proper distribution of the four or five really good books that my publishing house has put out this fall still remains unsolved and, though I advertised them in all magazines and newspapers, I should not effectively reach the attention of one-fifth or one-tenth of the possible buyers of them. I should simply spend in advertising the profit that I may make on the copies that I sell with a reasonable publicity through the regular channels. ”

“ Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 57-58, 73 S.Ct. 543, 551, 97 L.Ed. 770 (concurring opinion) , where several problems were posed. Can the Government damand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications? Would not the spectre of a government agent then look over the shoulder of everyone who reads? Might not the purchase of a book or pamphlet today result in a subpoena tomorrow? Would not the fear of criticism go with every person into the bookstall? If the light of publicity may reach any student, any teacher, would not free inquiry be discouraged? ”

“ You thank whatever gods there be for having made you a writer. The book or the play finished, the artist takes his departure, to dream of fresh triumphs. The shopkeeper—possibly a married shopkeeper with a family—comes into the study, finds the manuscript upon the desk. Then follows the selling, bargaining, advertising. It is a pretty hateful business, even with the help of agents. The book or the play you thought so fine, you thought that every one was bound to like it. Your publisher, your manager, is doubtful. ”

“ The publisher's literary adviser belongs to the period when the publishing business had expanded sufficiently to compel the publisher to look for skilled assistance in working more or less upon the older traditions. But when, as is now the case, expansion has gone so far as to swamp the older traditions, and to make publishing a purely commercial affair, the literary reader gives place to the man of business with aptitude for estimating how many copies of a given book can be sold. ”

“ The more clear and definite your orders are made out, the more promptly and completely can your bookseller supply them.
An ideal bookseller, qualified to act as your agent, is one who has familiarized himself with the various editions of books, and will always make selections with greater stress on quality than quantity; who will not send you the second edition of a scientific work when a third is out ”

“ To decide properly what books should be rebound and how they should be rebound is not a simple matter nor one which should be left to an inexperienced or uneducated assistant. In addition to a good working knowledge of materials and processes the assistant in charge of this work should have a general knowledge of books—paper, editions, prices, literary value, timeliness, etc.—and good judgment in deciding whether a book should be bound or whether it should be mended, recased, wrapped in paper, recovered, or thrown away. ”

“ Were it practicable, as I believe it to be, that authors and men of letters could themselves be booksellers, the public would derive this immediate benefit from the scheme; a deluge of worthless or indifferent books would be turned away, and the name of the literary publisher would be a pledge for the value of every new book. Every literary man would choose his own favourite department, and we should learn from him as well as from his books. ”

“ In the bargains I have made with publishers I have,—not, of course, with their knowledge, but in my own mind,—undertaken always to supply them with so many words, and I have never put a book out of hand short of the number by a single word. ”

“ To illustrate the way in which an arrangement of this kind would be likely to work in practice, we will suppose that some spirited author ventures upon a choice of publishers, and finding one who is bold enough to negotiate, he bargains to have his book brought out in a style suited to the subject, to his own reputation, and to the class of readers he is expecting to reach, trusting the result to the joint interest of his publisher in the enterprise. ”

“ The truth, however, is that the author cannot expect to do for himself, even in a modest way, much which the experienced publisher does for him. The avenues to the book trade, the book reviewer, and therefore to the general public, are not really open to any of us who are not publishers—as we can soon learn by making the attempt to travel, unpiloted, in these directions. ”

“ Such complacency on the part of the bookseller might argue for direct dealing on the part of the publisher by means of circulars and letters, thus saving the expense of a traveller. But firms that have tried this have had a change of heart and have quickly availed themselves of the traveller's services.
He is useful in ways other than selling. If he is keen to advance his firm's interests,—and most of the book travellers are,—he will interest the bookseller's clerks in the principal books of his line. ”

“ We have, too, the volumes of every kind and quality with which a crowd of publishers congests the book market: novels, poems, books of travel, science, political economy, religion, sport. Who could enumerate all the kinds of books which are published nowadays? ”

“ Messrs KERBY & ENDEAN’S large experience in the trade and personal practical knowledge of everything connected with the production of books, from the setting of the first types to the placing of the complete book in the hands of the public, are a sufficient guarantee that all that can be done to render books successful will be done by them, and they place their services at the command of authors about to publish. ”

“ Indeed, the high esteem in which they have come to be regarded offers a productive field for a few crafty publishers to ply their wily designs in. The audacity of these schemers carries them to such incredible measures that they sometimes buy sheet-stock from reputable publishing houses, change the name of the edition, and deliberately manufacture new titles [84] on which they print the name of some book club or society. These counterfeits are sold to the unsuspecting book-buyer, who often imagines he has landed a prize. ”

“ To the printer the librarian would say: since wishing is easy, let us imagine that what ought always to happen is happening regularly instead of rarely, namely, that the author produces a book worth printing and that the publisher leaves you free to put it into a worthy form. This is the opportunity that you have always been looking for. How are you going to meet it? Do you know all the elements that you deal with and can you handle them with a sure touch practically and esthetically? If so, you will not need any hints from the librarian, and he will order your book "sight unseen." ”

“ As far as it is possible to judge from the information given us respecting the collection of libraries, bookbuyers have little to complain of as to [Pg 60] the price paid by them to such respectable booksellers as have acted as their agents. Perhaps too little stress has been laid upon that characteristic which is happily so common among honest men, viz. that the agent is as pleased to get wares cheap for a good customer as for himself. ”

“ The firm of Hunt, Parry, & Co., now almost as familiar to the public under the new name as under the old colors with which it sailed so long, has been a bulwark and a rallying point for our literature, on which book buyers as well as book writers depended for many years. It has always been active, but never so active as now. ”

“ Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is even more fascinating employment than buying them through catalogues. You thus come upon the most unexpected volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book to book, like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a good way to recruit your library economically, to run through the stock of a book-dealer systematically—neglecting no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole stock, and laying aside what you think you may want. ”

“ Hawthorne, Longfellow, Poe, Lowell, Irving, Whittier, Holmes and many others, all have their admirers, who search the bookstalls, ransack old libraries, and even of late fill the advertising columns of the booksellers’ journals with lists of their wants and the prices they are willing to pay for them. All who have engaged in the delightful excitement of book-hunting must have at times met with difficulties, owing to the small amount of bibliographical data obtainable in print. ”

“ Meanwhile the librarian, who is interested in advertising ideas, must do what he can with his material. There is still a saving remnant of interesting non-fiction, and there is a goodly body of readers whose antecedent interest in certain subjects is great enough to attract them to almost any book on those subjects. ”

“ He acquaints himself with the essential character of the new book, points out to his customer enough of interest to cause him to glance through it, and finally sells it to him; for the intelligent bookseller knows the taste and reading habits of his customers. He has his leading customers in mind from the time he orders a new book till he has shown it and sold it to them. ”