Publishers were unwilling to pay for "unused space," as they termed it.
Each book was a separate unit, others argued: it was not like
advertising one article continuously in which money could be invested;
and only a limited amount could be spent on a book which ran its course,
even at its best, in a very short time.
And, rightly or wrongly, book advertising has continued much along the
same lines until the present day. In fact, in no department of
manufacturing or selling activity has there been so little progress
during the past fifty years as in bringing books to the notice of the
public. In all other lines, the producer has brought his wares to the
public, making it easier and still easier for it to obtain his goods,
while the public, if it wants a book, must still seek the book instead
of being sought by it.
That there is a tremendous unsupplied book demand in this country there
is no doubt: the wider distribution and easier access given to
periodicals prove this point. Now and then there has been tried an
unsupported or not well-thought-out plan for bringing books to a public
not now reading them, but there seems little or no understanding of the
fact that there lies an uncultivated field of tremendous promise to the
publisher who will strike out on a new line and market his books, so
that the public will not have to ferret out a book-store or wind through
the maze of a department store. The American reading public is not the
book-reading public that it should be or could be made to be; but the
habit must be made easy for it to acquire.
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