THE LIBRARY HABIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 231, 30 September 1935, Page 6

THE LIBRARY HABIT.

PITY THE POOR AUTHORS

(By DONALD COWIE.)

A cable message tlio other day gave the wclcome information that the number of books issued annually .by public libraries in tlio London and homo counties area has grown from 23,237,887 in 1024 to 56,905,176 last year, while in the same period the number of books on their shelves increased from 3,130,804 to 6,537,870. The information is welcome because it provides definite proof, in spit© of t'lio gloomy predictions of some publicists, that reading has not yet been affected adversely by broadcasting and the cinema. The Education Acts are at last bearing fruit. But what about the poor authors?

I don't think it is generally realised that every new subscriber to a public library means one less customer to the bookshop. Perhaps one library subscriber in fifty waxes so enthusiastic over the he takes out that he goes straightway and secures a permanent copy from the bookshop; but the fact is that from the authors' and publishers', and, of course, the booksellers', point of view the library habit is fast becoming a menace to trade. The word "menace" is not too strong, and it is used advisedly. When readers obtain books from libraries they pay for them a tithe of their cost; when publishers sell books to libraries they obtain for them very little more than their cost. When readers buy books each book read fairly reimburses author and publisher; when readers borrow books the author and publisher are unfairly reimbursed. I have it on authority that an efficient lending library calculates upon "circulating a single book some fifty times." Several million new books might have been read in England and New Zealand last year then, but you must divide the figure by fifty to arrive at. the number of books sold.

The complaint might be ungrateful. Authors and publishers might be content in the knowledge that every day, in at least one way, more people are reading more and more. But authors and publishers will be fools if they are content. A novel published at 7/6 returns to the autihor from 9d to I/O, and the total returns to authors from most first novels are negligible. I know a novelist whose total return from a moderately successful novel was £10. "That works out at half-a-crown a thousand words on an 80,000 words book," he said. "I'll be better employed in the future doing journalism for the newspapers at one guinea a thousand words."

It might be asked why publishers continue to sell books to the libraries when they are virtually losing on the transaction. Why don't the publishers combine and refuse to supply except at an adequate library price? But wrongs are not so easily righted as all that. Publishers and authors have been combining for several years now, but so far they have not acquired the combined strength, or collective courage, to impose a fairer system on the libraries. So far, indeed, a generally acceptable basis of reform has not been discovered. In his recent book, "Some Memories, 1901-1035," the publisher, Mr. George G. Harrap, certainly makes a suggestion:

Many books of which fewer than 2000 copies are sold, and which yield no profit to their publishers and only a pittance to the authors, are read through the libraries by many thousands of subscribers. . . . To-day most new novels are borrowed, few are 'boupht, and In my view the novel should in the first place be published for the libraries at a higher price; the successful books should be issued, say. at three shilling's and sixpence, some months later. . . .

But there arc booksellers who do a substantial trade with the libraries and would object to such a scheme because it would send the libraries direct to the publishers; there are booksellers who do a substantial new book trade, and who object to the libraries getting the books first; objections bristle everywhere as soon as a definite reform is suggested.

But something will have to be done sooner or later, else, by natural law, the rank and Hie of authors will seek a more profitable livelihood. Literature will definitely suffer. It is all very well for the man in the street to say that writers arc "all right." I think that it could be proved that even best-sellers do not reap the full benefit of their popularity. Hall Cainc died worth £200,000, but the world s«lcs of his novels had cxccedcd 10,000,000.