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V '1 : jan. 15, 1889 The -Publishers' Ci...
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MYSTERY OF THE CHRISTMAS BOOK. By O. B. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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V '1 : Jan. 15, 1889 The -Publishers' Ci...
V ' 1 : jan . 15 , 1889 The -Publishers' Circul & r ^ 1 '
Mystery Of The Christmas Book. By O. B. ...
MYSTERY OF THE CHRISTMAS BOOK . By O . B . ^ Bunce .
( From . bmpB th ^ «¦ & JYerv «^ bl ^ mt Yorlt ^ b ^ 90 ¦¦* Cri t . 1 tic . ) The senior partner of one * of our well-known
publishing - ^ , > ak a -houses an said * m bK recentl ^ y to * his A * younger partners and head assistants : ' I hope I shall
never see another Christmas book published by us . After I am deaddo as you pleasebut
while I live please make , no more books , for the holidays . * , '
Inasmuch as the holidays are supposed to be the harvest-time of the book-publishers
this remark will surprise many of my readers , . Assuredly , ' it willlje said , the ' holidays are
tho publishers' money-making season . Look at the thronged bookstoresat the counters
piled with volumes prepared , for it , at the busy — */ salesmen . , at the innumerable ..- parcels x
ready for delivery ! And do we not know that on Christmas-day countless thousands of
volumes go hither and thither , making glad the hearts of their recipients ? It . cannot be
possible in any form that thi a delusion s gay and - ^ -thai glittering the sump season tuous is
volumes that come forth with the embers of the the year wealth , with that all the are art lavished , ^ the taste upon , tlie them ^ eare ^
do not bring , substantial rewards to those , who project them ! ' These are natural
comments , yet , strange as it may seem , it is not only possible but generally true that the
making of Christmas books is not tjie brilliant thing financially that it seems to be .
I know how promptly my assertion will be met with the rejoinder : ' If holiday books do
not pay , why do publishers produce them ?' Will the logical reader who asks this question
explain how it is that people persist in investing in stocksin face of all the disastrous
consequences that , commonly follow an excursion into Wall Street ? Will they tell how it
is that the gambler , wrecked many times , still roturns to the gaming-tablefascinated by its
excitementand thrilled with , assurance of better luck , to come ? The making oi Christmas
hooks It is a is fascinating attended with pursuit just in these itself conditions and its .
victims are always allured by the hope , of a brilliant success next time .
A man who has once edited an art-book has awakened in himself an appetite that will
W sure to hunger for the same kind of fruit again . The hunting through poetic literature W a subjectthe contact and consultation
^ "ith artists , the , delight experienced as the 'havvings are brought inthe anxietiesoften
c painful ' ^' h illustration yet absorbing through , which , the attend handa watching of , the
~ ^ - ti these ^ iuver , appeals the stud to y of the desi imag gns for ination the binding these
exercises ]| usuall k y accompanied of taste and with invention many disappoint , althoug , - h ;
^ liiimpagne uta and . vexations ___ Naturall _^ , ^^ , y are _ they _ _ ... as _ _ exhilarating prove - induce -. _ - _ . _ as _ - |
¦ J m — ' ~ — ' — — , _ , _— _— — y I'Kuty for new ventures in ^ the artistic field . '' 10 h , book book of of last last year vearhad had not not wholly whollv succeeded an ^ ofiftdesd ; :
11 Had been praised ; it had sold moderate ^ * t' t ll , yet not well enough to yield a profit ;
^ " ill _ next be changed time the . Mistakes projector had is sure been that mad all e j
Mil- ) . , I . I J I I ZZ r which he now knows how to avoid . The book came out too late ; the price was too high ;
there were too many competitors in the field ; the binding had been ineffective ; the theme
was not popular enough—thus the victim deludes himself with excuses and explanations ,
and soon plunges enthusiastically into a new venture for the next season with too much
likelihood of a similar experience . The details involved in the production of (
into an illustrated which 'an book un are editor > many , and stumble the pitfalls are | wary may
at every hand . The artist may fail to grasp the themeand prove to have been a wrong
selection ; , or the drawings may be admirable in the judgment of severe criticsyet be far away from
, popular understanding or sympathy ; or the engravers may fail to render rightly the tones of
the drawings ; or the paper selected may be too pink or too red in tintor otherwise de- f
the ficient electrotyper ; or the wood ; or -blocks the printer may , , be the spoiled excellence by |
of whose work depends on conditions of the atmospheremay fail to obtain gooid impressions
of the cuts , ; or the sheets niay be pressed before they are — sufficiently T — ^ dry — ^ , causing o the — _ ink
to ' offset . ; or the binder ' s stampffor the cover * which looked so well in the coloured design
riiday prove to be something positively ugly . If , all these dangers are successfully avoided and
its the p p lann erfected er ^ and book build equals ersthe the triump expectations h is com of - I
, will plete wj . 11 — it iv almost sell ocu ? i . Yes x c For ; a ^ somewhat tjuuic then comes iicit . . the Few . u cw question holiday lkuiiuLay , | | e
books fail altogether , but the active sales are fi crowded into three weeks' time . During this I
short period orders flow in for it . In the last f week there are many orders from distant cities I
Cleveland and near cities Detroit ; Chicago Pittsburg , St . Louis h , Cincinnati Baltimore , , | f
Philadelphia , , Boston 1 , , demand more , copier ^ all I of which is verybustling and stimulatingand J
ass to u an red . inexperienced But the investment observer in success drawings , seems and |
engravings requires a sale of perhaps three thousand copies before profit beginsand hence
mand the activity may be , the considerable bustle of , and the yet last the , week accounts 's de- | f
after Christmas show many copies left over and i the book in debt . The unsold remainder is I
now packed away until the following Christmas , ' with the -expectation JL that it will then be worked II I
off and the financial scale turned . But , as an [ old rustic acquaintance" oT" mine was wont to |
another sa — y , * Calculisa . ' When tion the is one next thing Christmas and realisation comesit - -
is found that everyone - wants , .... the new issues ,, of the season , that the books of former years are
an old story , out of date and out of fashion . The old king is dead ; it is the new king that
reigns Holiday . books in recent years have mul- | I tiplied 1 " ^— greatlybecause drawings t may be ¦ ¦ j
—^ —m ^ m~— " ^— —m ^ BPP *& ^^ ^~^ ^^ ^ g , ^ W ^^ — ^^ ^^ ^ B . ^* M p reproduced hototype . Irt by the either latter form photograv the publisher ure or |
makes no investment , except in the drawings , j These are printed from photographic re- I
productions of the originals , at a rather large . coat for each impressionbutthere being no
, , investment in steel-plates or wood-block ^ , a
small edition is sufficient to pay . 1 ho ease
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Citation
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Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Jan. 15, 1889, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_15011889/page/13/
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