A Salable Book

Wbcn I had fínished rny cursory examinaiion of the manuscript, I laid it ïowu on the tabla, and shakingmy heat! snid : "lam sorry todisajjpoint you, oldfellow, but I should most strongly adviss yaa not to try any publisher with thifl story. I dou't think that there is the slifíhfest chance of its being accepted nnywhere. At the same time I must say that forafirst attcmpt it does you great credit, and ccrtainly if you stick to youi work you v.'ill soon be able to produce sometbing that will be successful. " I teil you that that book is going tfl bo the biggelt snooess of the yoar, " auswered Martin Koss, in who-se rooms in the Miedlo Temple we were sitting. Wo had beeu at Oxford together and had gone down about the same time, I tfl take my place on a newspaper and Ross to try bis fortune in the city. Although undoubtedivsharp, he had succeeded in nothüi, aüd I bad been under the impressiou that he had emigrated, wheii that af ternoon I met him iu the Strand, and ho told me that he had written a novel whicb was to make his fortune. It waa at his invitation that I bad accompamert him home to look over the manuscript In question. It was a very poor story, slovenly and amateurish iu style and vulgar beyond criticism. I feit sorry to have to discourage him, but it was only friendly on my part to do so. I accordingly repeated, in answer to his remark, "I aci quite certain that no London pnbliahet wou ld uudertake that book, though I am sorry to say so. ' ' Hü laughed and sairl: '"I uever sairt that I should offer it to any publisher. I am not such a fooi. I want all the profits rnyself. Wby should I put tha lion's share of them into a publisher'3 pockets? There are thousands in that book, and I'm going topublish it myself - that is to say, at iny own expense- and I shall put it into the hands of oni of those firma who publish on eommission. " "My dear fellow, " I oriod, "do lel yourself boguided by me and don'tspend any money on printing that book. I rlon't believe that a hundred copies of it would be sold. " "No, not a hundred," he answered confidently. "A hundred thousand is uearer the mark, though I expect the sale to go muoh higher tban that. I tel! you that I am to make my fortune out of thatbook; that I have struck oil this time, and richly. " "But the style, " I urged. "Oh, I know that the style isn'tup tn muoh," he answered. "I'm no hand at literatura, and, as a matter of faot, I took the leaütpossible troubleover writing this book. I dashod it off on the typewriter in less than a week. But it isn'fc on its merits as a work of art that this book is going to sell. " "Well, as what, then?" I asked. "Why does Soand-so's pill and Soand-so's soap sell? Becauae they are well advertised. Well, my book's Roinf to be well advertised and acoordingly will sell." "I fear you will have to spend a very large sum of money to advertise that book into success, " I remarked. I know exactly what I shall havo to spend. tíixpenca halfpenny per dozen copies, or a little over a halfpenny on each copy. Eaoh halfpenny and fraction so spent will sell a copy. The book will be produoed as cheaply as possible, and I calcúlate the cost to me at about twopence. Say that, with the advertising, each copy oost rae threepence, which ia above the mark, you may calcúlate what my profitswill be 011 a saleof even 100,000 copies. " "You have hit 011 some novel moda of advertising the book, then?" "Yon bet! The whole reason of my confideuce in ruy success of this shocker is thero. " " Would you mind telling what your plan is?" "Well, if you won't mind, I'd rather ] not, " he answered. "Yon see, I can'C afford togive away the idea. You might talk about it, and then some other fellow might snap it up. Don't be offended and ju.st watch the sales of 'A Disgrace to Society' - that is the title I have deciden! upon. They will make you open yonr eyes. ' ' "Very well, just as you please, " I said rather coldly, rising to take my departure. I did not sce Ross again for some i weeks, for, thongh I called once or twioe at his rooms in the Templo, I always fouud his oak sported. One day the inner door happened to be open, and through the letter slit I could see into his sitting room. There were six young ladies seated at a large table busily writing, and in front of each was a high pile of cards. Two iarge baskets, filled with similar eard, stood on tlie floor Business takinst me abroad, I was not present at the birth of the book on which my triend had built such hopes, and, though I looked in the London papers, I could find neither advertisement nor mention cf it. I was thereiore rather gurprised whe.n, on landing at Dover on ! my return home, I saw quite a heap o! fhe shilling volumes of "A Disgrace tl Society" on thebookstall at tho station. i AC the Victoria bookstall I saw anothpl I heap of tho same boo'.c, and on asking the clerk how this book was hi: answ-ered, "Like hot cakes. " Drivin;: home, I saw it well in eviilence at varioui bookshops. It was evideatly a biü Buccess, and I wondered ratber enviouS' ly how Ross had manager) toobtain luis for so very worthleas a produotiou 1 had pnrehased copy at Victo:];, anti looking over it i the cab bad had my first opmion of it confirruert. It was ;i wretcbed pieco: of work, and, moroover. disgracefully produced, badly printed ei cheap papnr and so carelessly bound that long ore I reacbod my lodgings it had come to pieces in my hand. "Howevor has he managed it?" J cried as I remembereel the very smal! salt:-; that my books, on which I had spent so much time and trouble, and which had boen pnblisbed by some of the first houses Iri London, had reached. The mystery was solved to me as I looked over the pile of letters which had collected during my absence. Ainong these was a thin post oard, addressed in an unfamiliar hand, upon which was written the following communication: Df.ais SlR- A sincere friend considera it hi9 duty to point otit to you that you are cruclly and srandalously libeled in a miserable shilling book callcd "A Disgrace to Society." publish'ed by Mfsfirs. Anderson & Maitland. You owf i t both to yourself and to your friends tfl take Tneasuriís to put a stop to the circulatio: of these falsehoods about you. A Trl'k Wem, Wikheiï. Now, as soon as I had read this. haviug iu the meauwhile forgotten all about Ross and his book, my first impulse was to rnsh out to the naarest bookstall and to ask for a copy of the work referred to. Then suddcnly it flashed across my mind that 1 had the book in my pocket, and remembering what I had seen at Rosa' rooms I beptan to nnderstnnd tho advertisiug scheme of which he had spoken so sanpuinely, and which, according to what I had seen and my own impulse at the moment, I had read the post card, seemed decidedly an effectual oue. I happened to meet Rops that sama evening just as he was alighting froni a hansom outside a fashionable Regent street cafe. As soon as he saw me he rushed up and cried out: "What did I teil you, old chap? Is it a bucccss, or ia it not We are printing the sistieth to seventieth thousand af this moment." "I suppose it is to yon I owe thi8 highly interestiner missive?" I said, holding out the post card that I had received. Rossglanced at it, and turning rathei red eaid: "I didn'tknow that your name was in the directory, or I would have given instructions that yon were not to be written to. Not that it matters rauch now that the success of the book is assured. Well, yes, that was the idea, and famously it has workad, as you have seen. We sent oardsto everybodyin the 'Who's Who.' in the clergy list, in the court section of the London directory and in the law list. Of course everybody who received a card immediately rushed off to the nearest bookseller to get the book and to find out how it referred to him. Yon see, everybody has more or less of a skeleton in his cnpboard, and there you are, don't yon know. A fresh batch of postcards is going ont tonight. Teil me, what do you think of the idea?" "I don't know, " I eaid "Tt's original certainly. Perhaps on tbe point of taste" - "Oh, taste be hanged!" cried Ross "Money is the thins? to be got, and moi ey I am getting. That wretched litfla book which I dashed off on my type writer in a fortnight has already broughc me in over L400, and I wouldu't sell my interest in it at present for twioe as muoh again. And then look what a start it gives me as a literary fellow. Won 't the pnblishers be af ter me soon, Ross, the author of the book which, without being advertised or reviewed in the papers, ran through over 100 editions in six weeks? I teil you my fortune is made, thanks to that happy thonght of mine. " I said nothing and shortly afterward quitted him. His sanguine hopeswere uot destined to realizatioi), by a curions exarnple of the irony of fate. On the very next day after I had met him a suit for libel was commenoed against him by a clergyman in the north of England named Burrell, who, having his attention called to a libel on him in the form of a story in which the ñames were so thinly disguised as to be recognizable by any ons of his acquaintances, and seeing in the story a rnalicious and grossly exaggerated version of oertain circnmstancea which had occurred in his family, instructed hia solicitor to commence pro ceedings. While these were pending the publishers, to reduce their responsibility to the lowest degree possible, suspended the sale of the book, in spite of thefact that the de.mand for copies increased daily. Very heavy damages were claimed by the plaintiff. The .affair was, however, settled out of court, a settlement which left Ross considerably out of pocket by his first and last literary venture. "I never heard of this fellow Burrell in my life, " he told me mournfully. "The story, such as it was, caroe out of my head Bnt of course I couldn't go into court and give myself away. The laugh wonld have been against me." And so no doubt it would have been.