26 APRIL 1946, Page 9

A NEW READING PUBLIC

By GRAHAM WATSON

BOOKSHOPS thronged with buyers have now become a common sight. The demand for books has never been so great. Has the war been responsible for the creation of a new book-buying public, and, if so, what type of book is it buying? Before it is possible to answer these questions it is necessary to examine some- thing of the recent background of the book trade. For four years the book trade has been experiencing great prosperity. Having over- come to a lesser or greater degree the set-backs of the early days of the war caused by the blitz (which destroyed millions of books), the rationing of paper and conscription (which together curtailed pro- duction), and the partial evacuation of the cities (which largely altered the existing channels of distribution), the trade then became faced with the equally difficult but more attractive problems of endeavouring to match a quite inadequate supply to an ever-increas- ing demand. No solutiOn has yet been found. Nor can one be found so long as paper-rationing continues and orders for the export trade have priority and printers are hamstrung through lack of trained personnel. But the gap between supply and demand is slowly narrowing. Increase in paper allocation will shortly put publishers in the position of having 75 per cent. of their pre-war requirements ; labour is beginning to find its way back from the Forces, and a return to more normal 'conditions of life is having its effect in the bookshops. With counter-attractions appearing in the other shops, the reading public is becoming more selective in its choice of books. Booksellers are already beginning to keep an eye on their slowly filling shelves of dead stock, books which were bought in the days when almost anything between a jacket could be sold, and are becoming more particular about what they order from -the publishers' lists. There is still no diminution in the number of books sold, but the signs are clear that there is a return to discrimination in buying.

This is no bad thing. During the war the trade attracted a large number of new publishers who saw the chance of quick prosperity and who were assisted by a Government who allocated to them a proportion of the precious available paper supply. The result was obvious. While classics, educational books and works of reference, badly needed to replace damaged or exhausted stocks, remained out of print, the market became flooded with sensational fiction of dubious character, children's books of poor value and reprints of books out of copyright and therefore carrying no royalty obliga- tions to the author. While it is almost impossible to buy a dictionary, while Dent's Everyman Library is virtually unobtainable, the bookstalls in the Charing Cross Road region are still heavy with their pernicious and pornographic stock.

On the other hand, there are evident signs that the genuine read- ing public is a serious-minded public. Shakespeare was the most asked-for author during the war in one London bookshop, and any second-hand classic which makes an appearance on its shelves is bought within ,a few hours. Fiction and biographies take a very poor second place to reference, technical and educational works. For these the demand is, if anything, increasing, partly no doubt because they are being bought by demobilised Servicemen who hope thus to tidy and replant the wilderness that six years in uniform have produced in their minds.

There seems, indeed, to be no doubt that the last few years have seen the emergence of a new reading public. Partly this has been due to the cumulative effect on each new generation of better education tending to ever greater literacy. This development was noticeable even before the war, and was denionstrated, for instance, by the very widespread sales of the Pelican Books, serious sister of the popular Penguins. But the trend has been enormously accele- rated as a result of the war when long evenings at home with no counter-amusements, except the wireless, drove people to read who had never read before. This, of course, is even truer of the Services, who, with plenty of time on their hands, watched eagerly for any fresh addition to the unit library. It is difficult to over- estimate the long-term effect that the various schemes, some Govern- ment-sponsored, for providing books for the Forces, will have in the

creation of a permanent new book-buying public. It is reason- able to assume, therefore, that the present turnover of the trade, which has doubled itself in four years from its pre-war figure of Lt() million per annum, will not again fall much below £15 million. This represents a very appreciable increase if it is, in fact, maintained. Out of these totals, £31 million used to be found from the export market as compared with £5 million today, and it is hoped that this latter figure will soon be increased to £8 million. The increased allocation of paper has been granted specifically to increase exports, and many of the reprints of well- known titles are, in fact, being sent abroad instead of finding their way to the home market. If, however, Britain is not to relinquish for ever her overseas markets to American competition, this is necessary and inevitable. The Americans, with no paper-rationing, are in a very favourable position to exploit the present overseas hunger for English books.

There are, therefore, reasons for optimism about the future of the book trade. There are also pitfalls. For years to come there is likely to be a considerable shortage of standard reprints. Publishers who have been unable to find the paper for the works of their current writers have been able to spare only a fraction of their quota for reprints. Many of them have lost through bombing large stocks of slow-selling standard works for which in many cases the type had already been broken up, making the problems of reprinting doubly difficult. When the firm of wholesalers, Simpkin Marshall, was blitzed, its entire stock of six million books was destroyed over- night. This experience was shared by many firms, and the cumula- tive losses will take years to replace. Even if paper became available on demand—and there are no signs of this happening in the imme- diate future—there would still be a bottleneck in the ancillary trades of printing and binding.

Actually the unrestricted supply of paper is not altogether viewed with favour by some in the trade. They recall the days before the war when the output of new books soared year by year, but the turnover throughout the trade was almost constant. The effect of this, of course, was that the average sale of each book was less, and this reduced the gross profit on each book. To try and replace this lost profit more books were published, and so the vicious circle went on. This naturally affected the bookseller, who had to spread his available capital over buying a much larger range of books, which in turn increased the risk of dead stock, and dead stock further restricted his purchasing power. This also had a restrictive effect on sales. Instead of his being able to display widely and create sales for a small number of books, his efforts were dispersed over a large number. And so both publisher and bookseller got caught up in an ever-tightening spiral of increased production reducing gross profits. It is possible that with the return of normal paper-supplies and unrestricted competition this situation may be repeated. In any event, booksellers are beginning to see the red light and are buying more cautiously.

But for all that, the trade faces the future with confidence. Although the days of unhealthy prosperity are ending, they have had the effect of financially improving the position of publisher and bookseller alike—and after the black years preceding the war this was necessary. For a healthy book trade can provide the ever- increasing circle of readers with a greatly improved service to that customary before the war. Financial stability will enable publishers to issue books of real value more cheaply and with less concern for their immediate financial return. Booksellers will be able .o keep in stock a larger and more catholic range of books. And .he buyer will find himself once more in the position of buying accord- ing to his choice and not according to local availability.