Publishers and the public : reprinted from The Times of 1852.

  • The Times.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Publishers and the public : reprinted from The Times of 1852. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Mr. Murray says it is in great measure an authors' question. He is right, and authors will prove much less intelligent than 1 take them to he if they do not see how immensely their own interests, as well as those of the public, would be served by a diminution of these exorbitant trade profits. Let any one refer to Porter's Progress of the Nation, and there note the many cases in which a small reduction of price has been followed by a great increase of consumption, and he cannot avoid the inference that a 20 per cent, decrease in the vendor's charge for a book would cause a much more than proportionate increase in its sale ; and as this decrease would be in the cost of agency, and not in the authors’ price, the extra sale would be so much clear profit to him. Books that now entail loss would pay their expenses, and books that now only pay their expenses would bring something like a reasonable remuneration. Should the publishers and booksellers persist in their restrictive policy, which is injurious, not only to authors and the public, but, 1 believe, in the long run, even to themselves, I think that as a matter of business authors will be justified in declining to publish with any who belong to the combination. I am, &c., AN AUTHOR. (From The Times of April 9, 1852.) TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir,—The controversy respecting the bookselling trade, which has recently been brought before the public, may be simply disposed under three heads :—• I. The necessity of a fixed and uniform retail price. 1. The interests of authors and publishers require that there shoidd be a number of persons engaged in the retail trade, through whom their publications may be brought under the notice of the public. 2. For this purpose it is necessary that there should be a fixed retail price, as every copy of a book being a fac-simile of every other copy of the same edition, the business would otherwise be monopolized by those who were willing to sell at the lowest rate of profit. 3. It is, therefore, necessary, in order to maintain a respectable class of retail booksellers, that the price of books should be maintained as uniform as possible, and that any discount allowed to the purchaser should also be on one uniform system. II. Is the present rate of allowance to retail booksellers excessive or not ? A reduction of the rate of profit on any branch of business has a tendency to reduce the number of persons engaged in it ; consequently authors and publishers being concerned in supporting the retail book- sellers, are equally concerned in maintaining a fair rate of profit on that branch of the business ; this is a point, however, in which the public are not in any way concerned, and in which the interests of authors and publishers are identical. It may, therefore, safely be left to the arrange- ment of the parties directly interested.
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