PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
ILIKE people to talk shop, and of all forms of shop I find publisher-shop the most agreeable. Publishers, like minor poets, are apt, as Wilde said, to put into their con- versation what they leave out of their books. Again and again have I discussed with publishers the fascinating problem of why books sell. All publishers will assure you that advertising has little or nothing to do with it ; it pays to advertise a successful book, but it never pays to advertise an unsuccessful book. There is a type of author who likes being advertised and who fusses his publisher accordingly. The publisher replies, " I am afraid the advance sales have been so unpropitious that we cannot budget for any very ambitious advertisement programme " ; alternatively, he replies " The book is going so swimmingly "—this is a favourite adverb with publishers—" swimmingly, that it would merely be throwing money away to splash the papers: perhaps, when the sales begin to drop, a little reminder might be valuable." Heads I win, tails you lose.
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