Book Clubs
SIR,—Perhaps Daniel fortified himself by picking a bone with the lions. May I counter Mr, Faber ?
You can do a lot with money; you can do a lot with figures—to support your inner faith." But mine, I must confess, differs from that of Mr. Geoffrey Faber in his article in your last week's issue. In default of any P.S. I find his parenthesis—" this doesn't of course apply to numbers of books; it applies only to their total value "—more important than his thesis.
Surely the success of publishing, in times of cash stringency such as these in which we live, lies in the number of books read and bought, rather than in their (I submit irrelevant) total cash value. It can't be a matter for congratulation that three and a half times as much money is being spent on British books as before the war-7---it can only be a reflection on their increased price, Because we spend more on house- keeping, it doesn't mean we feed better. The .Siepmann Unesco Report (on television and education) - to which he rightly draws attention also reveals the comforting fact that " a quarter of all television viewers report reading at some time while watching tele- vision "(page 36) and concludes (page 125) " that the prophets of doom are probably exaggerating "—in other words that hope lies in making viewers interested in books.
Surely therefore our paramount task is to interest the unconverted fringe rather than to preach to the converted core. Make people want to borrow books first; they will soon want to buy and read for themselves.
In his, summary Mr. Faber states that book clubs only account for a paltry 0.83 per cent, of every £100 worth of hooks sold in the United Kingdom. But book clubs select, and sell to the ordinary " broadbrow " public, books for a fraction of their normal price. According to The Bookseller (January 10th, 1953) the average price of 8,944 titles issued by 1,181 publishers during the period July-Decem- ber, 1952, was 14s. Id. (It would be interesting to know what the average pre-war price was.) Yet book clubs in this country issued in the same period not less than two and three quarters million books at an average price of 4s. 6d: Their total cash value; may not be sensational: their impact is, Let me give one example, that of the American Pulitzer Prize novel, The 'Caine' Mutiny. The cash value of our book-club edition' equals that of the sales of the ordinary edition, yet, publishing at one third of the 'ordinary price, we have Sent copies into the homes of three times as many readers.—Yours faithfully,
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