34 Associated Travelers Dine THE HE second annual dinner of the Associated Book Travelers was held at the Hotel Commodore on Tuesday evening, December 21st. Practically all of the eastern publishers were represented in the hundred or so men present. President Vass presided and Christopher The other Morley served as toastmaster. speakers were Lowell Thomas of Arabian fame, Dr. Joseph Collins, who tells the reading public how its authors "get that way," John Mulholland, magician and author of books on magic, and James Kerney, newspaper publisher and author. The officers for 1927 are: President, Henry M. Snyder; Vice President, Leon Archer; Treasurer, George W. Jones, Jr.; Secretary, Orlando M. Baker. The Rights to the "Book-of-the- your attorneys stating that you hold the exclusive right to the name "Book-of-theMonth Club" "or any similar name in connection with the book business." Without raising other questions, we remind you that the Books of the Month periodical has been published by us for many years, with an edition reaching as high as 250,000 copies in a month, and that the phrase of your attorneys must have been used in ignorance of that fact. This periodical, as you probably know, includes a service to book buyers in selecting the best books of the month based on the votes of a hundred cooperating booksellers. We must therefore take exception to the very broad character of your attorneys' letter, especially in view of the fact that in defense by those whom your attorneys threaten to prosecute they might cite our publication and thus draw us into the matter. You will perhaps agree with us that some modification of this statement would be just and wise. R. R. BOWKER Co., R. R. Bowker, President. Credit to the Illustrators THE Publishers' Weekly, in common This action was taken be- SIMULTANEOUSLY with the opening Mr. Robert K. Haas, President, Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc., 218 West 49th St., New York City. My dear Sir: of the Illustrated Book Exhibit at the Art Center comes supplementary evidence of the new part that illustrations are to play in modern book manufacture in the form of a brochure published by Doubleday, Page & Company entitled "About Artists, written by Anice Page Cooper, and taking up for interesting discussion important illustrators who have been working upon Doubleday publications. This list includes Edward A. Wilson, Charles Livingston Bull, Gordon Grant, Elizabeth MacKinstry, Walter Jack Duncan and Charles B. Falls. The price of the brochure is ten cents. This makes an admirable addition to the important brochures that Doubleday has published. Of these author lists, which include not only studies of the authors but valuable check-lists of their work, the following are available for distribution at the same list price: Kipling, Conrad, Lagerlöf, Tarkington, Morley, McFee, Ferber, O. Henry, Glasgow, David Grayson and We note that it embodies a letter from Ernest Thompson Seton. We have your circular letter of December 14th addressed to publishers in general, and thank you for including ourselves in sending it. T In the Book Market HE Drama League of America and Longmans, Green are co-operating in a national playwriting contest. There are four contests, for a one-act play on an American historical theme in which only college students may compete; a one-act play in which anyone may compete in which the theme must be unusual in conception and treatment; a play of any length, one-act, three-act or pageant in construction based on incidents of either the Old or New Testament; a fulllength play with any number of acts or scenes, any theme treated in any manner and for which anyone may compete. The plays are to be judged by the State Judges and sent on to the National Judges for final selection. Manuscripts must be in the hands of the State Judges not later than June 1st, 1927. The winning fulllength play will be produced by Brock Pemberton, prominent producer of New York, the Biblical play by the Pilgrim Players of Chicago, and the one-act plays by the American Academy of Dramatic Arts of New York. All four will be published by the play department of Longmans, Green & Company. The contests have been organized by Nathaniel Edward Reeid and will be under his general supervision. For further particulars those interested should address the Drama League of America, 59 East Van Buren Street, Chicago, or Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Ave., New York City. On the fourth of January, Harpers will publish a new novel by Anne Parrish titled "Tomorrow Morning," in which the author of "The Perennial Bachelor" relates the story of a mother and son. Another book for the week will be "This of "Miss Tiverton Goes Out," and issued by the publishers of that earlier book— Bobbs-Merrill. In England where the book has already been published, the reviews have been very favorable. G F G The Hadley Book Shop in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is a live bookstore that realizes there is more to selling books than setting up a shop. It knows that books have to be talked about and made appealing to the potential buyer outside of the shop as well as in. Their little shop paper, now in its second volume, is filled with interesting material and with their December issue they sent out a splendid selected list of books, of novels, poetry, travel, life and letters, "other books of interest" and new books for children. At the end of the list came one more line, "And all the old favorites, some in new dress and some in old." After listing the recently-published maps a space is left for listing books to be ordered. The whole effect is very pleasing and should certainly have noticeable results. The drawing reproduced on this page is from "What Happened to a Library Book," a tale for young readers. It is told in verse by L. Stanley Jast and illustrated with many amusing pictures by Eric Newton. Published in London by Libraco Limited it has been brought out in this country by the R. R. Bowker Co. & & & We're reminded of Max Beerbohm's caricature of Byron shaking the dust of England from his feet for Rebecca West has startled London by announcing that she would henceforth live in the United States because she detests living the English life and especially the London life. Ah well, east is east and west is west! In A and Out of the Corner Office MAN has to have a good story and tell it well to pass with credit at the meetings of the Dutch Treat Club of New York and this ordeal "Bob" Sherwood of "Here we are Again" fame passed most successfully last week. They liked his circus yarns, songs and pictures and then hung on his neck the medal of honorary membership. Margery Quigley of the Washington Public Library, valued contributor to our pages, sends word of a most interesting Vassar conference on children's reading, part of the program of the Alumanae Association. Dorothy Canfield is to be their guest of honor on March 4th and 5th at Poughkeepsie and the subject will be discussed by an author, a mother, a teacher, a librarian, an illustrator and a publisher, the latter being Louise Seaman of Macmillan's. On February 4th and 5th there is a poetry conference with Hervey Allen, Edw. L. Davison, Wm. Rose Benét, Elinor Wylie, and Padraic Colum. It is pleasant to find that Justice John Ford, flayer of publishers and continuing sponsor of more rigid censorship legislation, is after all human. On December 15 he refused to grant a Mrs. Totelman a divorce on her claim that her husband was flirtatious. Said the good Justice: "A man who doesn't like to look at a pretty woman has something abnormal about him. I don't know that there is anything wrong about smiling at a pretty girl. I'm smiling at you now and right in the presence of your husband." script "lying around in a pile of rejected material when Colonel William Heinemann, on his way from the office for a week-end trip, thought he would take some of them with him to check up the work of the manuscript readers. Half the reading. staff were fired when he returned." If we are not mistaken, Mr. Heinemann died about four years ago before the manuscript was submitted. We are sure, and have checked this by the Doubleday office, that the correct story is that Charles Evans, head of the editorial department of Heine mann's, was stirred to enormous enthusiasm on first reading and that nowhere along the line did it fail to create an impression of immediate success. However, the public would still love to believe that the publishers are all blind, so we suppose the note will continue to circulate, to the glorification of some publicity agent. "The price cutter is worse than a criminal," says The Standard Oil Company Magaine. "He is a fool. He not only pulls down the standard of his goods; he not only pulls down his competitors; he pulls down himself and his whole trade. He scuttles the ship in which he himself is afloat. "Nothing is so easy as to cut prices; and nothing is so hard as to get them back when once they have been pulled down. "Any child can throw a glass of water on the floor, but all the wisest scientists in the world can't pick that water up. "Who gets the benefit of price cutting? "Nobody. "The man who sells makes no profit; and the man who buys soon finds himself getting an inferior article. "The man who cuts prices puts up the sign: This way to the junk pile.' "He admits he cannot win by fighting fair. "He brands himself as a hitter below the H Favorable Forecasts for 1927 Press Reports Promise Good Business Conditions ERBERT HOOVER, Secretary of Commerce, in response to many requests from newspapers and magazines for a statement of conditions and prospects for the coming year, has issued the following statement. A reply to requests for opinion on the New Year's economic prospects can only be based on the economic currents already born of the old year. New and unknown currents will enter in the new year, so there is no such thing as assured economic prophecy. No one will deny that 1926 has shown. the highest total production and consumption of industrial commodities of any year in the history of the United States. Except in the textile industry and parts of the coal industry, it has been a year of high degree of employment, which has been accompanied by the highest peak in real wages, because wage income for the country as a whole has slightly increased and cost of living slightly decreased during the year. Manufacturing, the service industries, and commerce generally have continued to improve their methods, to reduce costs, and to improve services. In aggregate each industry appears to show substantial profits except the textile and some parts of the coal industry. While there has been a slackening in production and demand for several staple lines during the past few weeks, we enter the new year with no consequential over-stock of manufactured goods. With the largest volume of construction during the past year ever known there may prove to be some construction in advance of immediate needs, but slackening in this direction may be partially compensated by the assurance of a larger amount of public construction during the next year. Savings of the country have shown a steady increase and there is ample cheap capital available. The lag of agricultural recovery has continued and has been accentuated by distressing crop failures in some localities. Cotton and some fruit crops beyond world demand have brought about prices below the cost of production of large areas of those commodities. There is a consequent lowered buying power in some agricultural sections. The nation is making economic progress. Some areas lag behind others, and discontent with the lag is an assurance of a lively sense of initiative and the best promise of remedy. Each individual tests the question of prosperity by his own setting and naturally applies his own test to his views of the economic state of the nation. If we use the more precise term "economic progress" we find we have per capita as the result of the year 1926 more and better homes, more electric lights and power, more transportation, more roads, more substantial buildings, more radios and more automobiles, more savings, more life insurance and more of a lot of things. We also have more educational facilities and more per capita circulation of newspapers and magazines than ever before. Altogether we enter the New Year with a job in prospect for most everybody, with the whole nation better fed, better housed, and better clothed than any other nation. The large disappearance of poverty in the chronic sense should make us more sensible to the remedy of misfortune in the individual sense, and the high recovery of industry and commerce from the losses of the war should make us more sensible of the needs of agriculture. HIS AMATEUR STANDING His first manuscript had just been returned to the young author for the sixth time. "And to think," he observed sadly, "that promoters sit up nights pleading with athletes to become professionals.”—Detroit News. The Bishop of Liverpool has started an English church storm by asking that Hell be abolished. Suggested title for Bruce Barton's next book: "The Place Nobody Goes to Any More."-Life. Golden Rules for Young Shopkeepers D bet in the front. OUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. have announced for next fall “A Book of Days" by Rachel Field to succeeed her very popular "Alphabet for Boys and Girls. The pictures are simple and gay with something of Randolph Caldecott and something of Kate Geenaway. Miss Field, who has just returned from London, where she looked at much Greenaway material, has brought with her a book which she got while there, "The English Spelling-Book" decorated by Kate Greenaway, which has an illustrated alphaUnder the heading of "Moral and Practical Observations, which ought to be committed to memory at an early age" a series of rules appears, "Golden Rules For Young Shopkeepers" by Sir Richard Phillips. With very little adaptation they are surprisingly applicable to booksellers of the twentieth century. "1. Choose a good and commanding situation, even at a higher rate or premium; for no money is so well laid out as for situation, providing good use be made of it. 2. Take your shop door off the hinges at seven o'clock every morning, that no obstruction may be opposed to your customers. 3. Clean and set out your windows before seven o'clock, and do this with your own hands, that you may expose for sale the articles which are most saleable, and which you most want to sell. 4. Sweep before your house; and, if required, open a footway from the opposite side of the street, that passengers may think of you while crossing, and that all your neighbors may be sensible of your diligence. 5. Wear an apron, if such be the custom of your business, and consider it as a badge of distinction, which will procure you respect and credit. 6. Apply your first return of ready money to pay debts before they are due, and give such transactions suitable emphasis by claiming discount. 7. Always be found at home, and in some way employed; and remember that your meddling neighbors have their eyes upon you, and are constantly gauging you by your appearances. 8. Re-weigh and remeasure all your stock, rather than let it course. wife. be supposed you have nothing to do. 9. Keep some article cheap, that you may draw customers and enlarge your inter10. Keep up the exact quality, or flavour, of all articles which you find are approved of by your customers; and by this means you will enjoy their preference. 11. Buy for ready money as often as you have any to spare; and when you take credit, pay to a day, and unasked. 12. No advantage will ever arise to you, from any ostentatious display of expenditure. 13. Beware of the odds and ends of a stock, of remnants, of spoiled goods, and of waste, for it is in such things that your profits. lie. 14. In serving your customers be firm and obliging, and never lose your temper— for nothing is got by it. 15. Always be seen at church or chapel on Sunday; never at a gaming table: and seldom at theaters or at places of amusement. 16. Prefer a prudent and discreet, to a rich and showy 17. Spend your evenings by your own fireside, and shun a public house or a sottish club, as you would a bad debt. sottish club, as 18. Subscribe with your neighbors to a book-club, and improve your mind, that you may be qualified to use your future affluence with credit to yourself, and advantage to the public. 19. Take stock every year, estimate your profits, and do not spend above one-fourth. 20. Avoid the common folly of expending your precious capital upon a costly architectural front; such things operate on the world like paint instead of attracting them. 21. Every pound on a woman's cheek,-repelling beholders wasted by a young tradesman is two pounds lost at the end of three years, and two hundred and fifty-six pounds at the end of robbed and ruined by apprentices and astwenty-four years. 22. To avoid being home in the evening; and the restriction sistants, never allow them to go from will prove equally useful to master and servant. 23. Remember that prudent purchasers avoid the shop of an extravagant and ostentatious trader; for they justly consider, that, if they deal with him, they must contribute to his follies. 24. Let these be your rules till you have realized your stock, and till you can take discount for prompt payment on all purchases; and you may then indulge in any degree which your habits and sense of prudence suggest." |