To the genteel folk who keep you advised about what to read, the signing of the booksellers’ code is another Magna Carta. Of special gratification is the provision that prohibits any one store from selling a book below its published price. This means that you will no longer trek downtown to a large department store so as to save money on the purchase of the latest best-seller. You will be able to drop around to your neighborhood shop and get the same book at the same price. What is more, it will be more convenient because most neighborhood shops are open in the evening.
New authors will also be helped by this new deal. In the past, books were not merchandised. Large outlets sold only those books for which there was a demand. People did not browse. They bustled in, asked for a certain title and out they went.
Usually, the store was crowded and conversation with clerks was not encouraged, but now all that has been changed. More attention will be paid to the individual. If a bookclerk likes a book he will be able to sell it and he will have customers who will listen to his advice.
Salesmanship by publishers will become an important factor. If the publisher is able to interest a bookstore in pushing a title that book will then have a chance. Under the cut-price system small shops were wary of carrying anything but the books most in demand but now they must give service to their patrons. It should be a healthy thing for books and authors in general and it may break up the herd-like tendency of book buying that has been throttling the trade these past six or seven years.
GOSSIP OF A SORT
Wolfe (Billy) Kaufman, short, mustached and plump, who writes book reviews for Variety and does most of the literati news in that paper, has written another novel. His first has been buried in the bottom of the proverbial trunk. His present opus is a Broadway story and at this minute is being considered by one of the newer publishers…. Louis Green, advertising manager of Publishers’ Weekly, is back from that Bermuda cruise looking very tan and hungry for news…. William Cardinal O’Connell has told the story of his life in “Recollection of Seventy Years” which Houghton-Mifflin will issue in June. Cardinal O’Connell is the Catholic churchman who resides in Boston and dislikes crooners, Einstein’s Theory and a number of other things. He has never been known for his reticence.
Nate Dorfman, Broadway press agent, playwright and scenario writer is seriously considering delving into the uncertain field of novel writing. He is a very busy fellow and if he plunges, it will be at the expense of his tennis.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
