Publisher's Revolution

In 1939 Publisher Robert Fair de Graff of Pocket Books was hit by an idea. This week he was in the middle of a revolution. Idea was his glossy-covered, 25-c- reprints of standard books and classics. The revolution was the method of distributing Pocket Books like magazines. Result has been to create the biggest adult book market ever reached by a U.S. publisher, to revolutionize the book-buying habits of U.S. readers.

The extent .of this publishing revolution is lit up by some startling facts & figures:

> Last year Pocket Books sold nearly 5,000,000 copies, will probably sell 10,000,000 in 1941.

> An Agatha Christie murder mystery sells 11,000 copies of the first run, some 40,000 copies of the 75-c- reprint. Pocket Books sells a minimum of 100,000 copies of every Agatha Christie reprint.

> Since it was published a month ago, the Pocket Bible has sold 75,000 copies, will probably be one of the two or three best sellers on the newsstands.

During his first year, Publisher De Graff tried almost every known means of distribution. But this year most of his anticipated 5,000,000 gain will come from the independent magazine wholesalers, who began to get really interested in his fast-growing sales late in 1940. There are about 700 of these distributors in the U.S., and since January over 300 of them have undertaken to put Pocket Books in cigar stores, grocery stores, book stores, drug stores, hotels, on newsstands and subway stands in exactly the same way they distribute magazines and razor blades. Others are offering to act as distributors at the rate of ten a day. Says excited Publisher De Graff of this revolution: "Pocket Books has wedded book and magazine distribution."

Results of this union are easily seen in a city like Columbus, Ohio, where regular publishers have some six outlets, Pocket Books used to have twelve. It now has 224.

None of these 224 outlets is consulted about what titles or how many copies it wants, since the wholesaler takes back unsold Pocket Books like unsold magazines. The wholesaler simply assigns the retailer a basic draw of so many Bibles, so many Wuthering Heights, so many Agatha Christies. The retailer makes 6-c- on each copy sold, takes no bigger business risk than the amount of space he allots Pocket Books on his counter. Once a week the wholesaler's man comes to the store, checks over what books are sold out, removes the slow-moving titles, replenishes the stock. There is no sales overhead except for servicing the account, keeping the stock replenished.

Wholesalers seldom distribute in towns under 5,000 population. To reach still smaller communities, Publisher De Graff uses the seven U.S. galley operators, who work by mail and who are now selling his reprints in villages that never sold a book before. To widen his market still further, he has been toying with two new ideas--vending machines and Spanish America, where his books will soon appear on the newsstands under the name of Libros de Bolsillo. The first experimental vending machine is not much of a hit.

Next to How To Win Friends, the five best-selling Pocket Books are all standard fiction: Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Lost Horizon, The Good Earth, The Pocket Book of Short Stories. De Graff cherishes a letter from a dealer in New Bedford, Mass. One day the dealer noticed two grimy-faced, grimy-handed coal heavers looking at his window display of Pocket Books. Somewhat hesitantly they went into the store, bought two Their selections: The Microbe Hunters, The Return of the Native.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.