CHAPTER VII - ADVERTISEMENT

Summary

All books must have advertisement, and from a very ancient date this necessity has been recognised by those interested in their sale. “ If the book please you,” writes Cicero to Atticus, “ you will take care to have it circulated in Athens, and other cities of Greece.” Absolutely the first “posters” ever seen in England were those by which Caxton advertised certain devotional tablets of his own printing, while the first regular newspaper advertisers were the booksellers.

It is on their presumed experience in advertising that publishers have chiefly grounded the necessity for their own existence; yet, curiously enough, there is no item in a publisher's account more bewildering to the author. He soon perceives that the size of the original edition, the original cost of the production of the book, and the number of sales effected, have no fixed relation to the amount spent in this manner; and he wonders upon what system, if any, Ihe money has been expended. Disputes on the subject are therefore frequent, as might be expected from the almost invariable manner of presenting the account. This is to charge a lump sum, giving neither details nor vouchers in proof of the same. Such a way of doing things makes it so incredibly easy for a publisher to cheat, that to the man of business, accustomed always to know for what he is paying, it becomes incredibly hard to believe that he has not been cheated.