Among the Literati

Not being too shrewd a statistician I can nevertheless prove to you that the people of this country are not book buyers. There are some 75,000,000 literate adults living in the United States, yet when a book such as “Anthony Adverse,” the best selling title in the last ten years, reaches a sale of 300,000 it is spoken about in hushed tones as though it were some kind of a miracle. In the book business it is estimated that every book sold to a library or an individual is read by a maximum of ten people, which means that the total circulation of “Anthony Adverse” was not in excess of 3,000,000.

I take this particular book as a shining example of the book reading habits of our citizens. Here is a book that received high critical praise, plenty of advertising and thousands of columns of publicity. It was undoubtedly the most discussed book of the season. With all the ballyhoo that accompanied its publication only 4 per cent of the potential reading public took the trouble to look between its covers.

All sorts of reasons have been advanced for the condition of the book business in America. We know that in France, England and Germany books have a much wider circulation than they have over here. The uninformed think that it is the high price of books that keeps people from reading, but as a matter of fact books are as cheap here as they are abroad. Many experiments have been tried in lowering book prices but so far they have had no effect on the market.

MAGAZINES STRONG COMPETITORS

Of course the biggest and most dangerous competitor of the book publisher is the magazine. I have been told by circulation managers that there are some 30,000,000 people who buy at least one magazine weekly.

The conclusions I have come to are that the reading taste of the American public is simply low. The bulk of the magazine circulation is among the types that pander to the saccharine sentimentality of the moron. To educate this class up to the better type of book would take a few generations and a complete change in our educational system, but there is a class of potential book buyers who could be cultivated. I refer to the college graduate.

LEAD IN COLLEGE GRADUATES

We are very proud of the fact that this country leads all others in the number of students graduated each year from our higher institutions of learning. A. survey conducted among these college alumni showed conclusively that they were not book readers.