The Atlantic Bookshelf: Conclusion

UNBEKNOWNST to most readers, war has been raging within the book trade. Hostilities broke out months ago over the question of price cutting. A group of some twelve insurgents, sizable department stores in five states, began to bait the public — and each other — by selling the popular new books at less than the list price, and, when competition became fierce, at even less than cost.

The average publisher sells bis books direct to approximately five hundred shops of one kind or another, which in turn retail them to the reader. These shops — the majority of which are small 1 personal ’ affairs — buy their books at a discount beginning at 30 per cent and rising in proportion to the size of the order. The larger the order, I he larger the discount. Department, stores, with their special sales technique, can ‘melt’ a good many piles of books in the course of a day by treating popular books as‘loss-leaders’ (that is, merchandise sold at a. loss to induce allied purchases). These twelve insurgents could —and did — pull customers away from those smaller shops that make up the bulk of the book trade, arc dependent upon the sale of books alone, and simply could not afford to engage in price cutting. So war was declared between the twelve insurgents and the confederacy of small shops.

The little fellows saw that they would be bled to death if price cutting continued. They saw no reason why Gone with the Wind. a $3.00 book, should be slashed to $1.4!) by those willing to make it a loss-leader. The little fellows argued for a uniform price the country over, and they went to law. They found refuge in acts which have now been passed in thirty-eight states, and which sanction price maintenance. A New York publisher can now make contracts with a bookseller forbidding the slashing of prices. Macmillan, for instance, signed such contracts: Gone with the Wind is now selling everywhere at its original $3.00 price.

As in all modern wars, noneombataiits were involved. Macy’s, one of the insurgents, now urges authors not to allow their books to be subject to such contracts; in a public statement the shop advises its customers that ‘price fixing means price raising.’ This advice seems to nu decidedly unfair. The public should realize that the maintenance of current prices of new books (prices that are economically justifiable) works no hardship on the readers, nine out of ten of w hom were never in a position to touch a loss-leader. The public should realize that, the health of the book trade rests not alone in the hands of a few department stores, but in those of the 500 (which some day will be 5000) individual shops the nation over. The public should realize that this war must end. not in peace at any price, but in peace at a uniform and reasonable price.