U.S. Book Boom Attracts Big Business

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31362, 6 May 1967, Page 4

U.S. Book Boom Attracts Big Business

fßv ERIC BRITTER, writing to "The Times”, London from New York. Reprinted from "The Times) When television first came to the United States in a big way, just after the Second World War, there were those who said that it would mean the death of reading. Judging by the growth of book sales since then, the pessimists were wrong. In February the United States Department of Commerce published a graph with the caption “Book boom maintained,” which showed that ever since the fifties Americans have been buying more books year by year. The increase, in fact, has been more than three-fold.

Thus the publishing trade, which in 1954 sold s7oom. (about £250m.) worth of books, had trebled this figure by 1966 when sales reached a new estimated record of $2200m. This was an increase of 10 per cent on the 1965 figure. For the present year, projected sales will be up again by another 10 per cent to a total of $2450m. What sort of book does America read? The answer is, all sorts, ranging from text and reference books, which account for 51 per cent of sales, to the Bible and other religious books, which form 4.5 per cent of the total.

In between are “trade” or general books including novels and biographies, 7.3 per cent; book club selections which are mostly novels and biographies, 9 per cent; juvenile books, 6.3 per cent; and paperbacks, 6 per cent. This last is a mixed category, but, according to one publisher, “the biggest thing that’s selling now in paperbacks is hardcore sex.”

The boom in publishing in the United States is largely explained by a growing population with a rising literacy rate: for instance, the nation’s school-going population is increasing by almost a million children a year. This means, in the first place that more text books are needed. These, along with their electronic adjuncts, now form the most profitable sector of the publishing trade. They account for the increasing interest in the trade shown by big business corporations which have been buying up old-established publishing houses. In the second place, the adult book-reading public is also being reinforced year by year. Many of these adults, it may be said, are interested only in newspapers, comics, and magazines. But even so it is certain that more Americans are reading more books than ever before.

The boom in American publishing is also reflected in the fact that the United States book trade, which used to lag far behind that of Britain, is now beginning to overtake it. Having regard to the fact that the potential reading public is almost four’ times as large, this is hardly surprising. The only surprising thing is that it has taken so long to happen. Thus in 1965 American publishers printed a record number of 28,595 books, consisting of 20,234 new books and 8361 new editions. During the same year British publishers, who until recently were more prolific in their output, printed a total of 26,358 books, of which 21,045 were new works and 5313 new editions. The 1966 figures, when they all become available, will almost certainly show the United States forging ahead. (“Publishers’ Weekly” figures for American production in 1966 put the total at 30,050, a 5 per cent increase on 1965.)

Reverting to the boom in textbooks and their adjuncts, meaning such things as audiovisual devices, talking typewriters, computers and television teaching systems, it is understandable that concerns like the Columbia Broadcasting System, the Radio Corporation of America, the Xerox Corporation, and the Raytheon Company should be interested and are moving into the book business. In recent months there have been some big deals in this respect. The most recent, only the other day, was an offer by C.B.S. to buy out, at a cost of $275m (almost £100m) in C.B.S. stock, the venerable publishing house of Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The directors of the publishers have approved, and the deal seems likely to go through. What makes the 101-year-old publishing bouse so attractive to C.B.S. is that seven years ago it absorbed two textbook firms and thus has a firm footing in the school system. This means that C.B.S. will have what “Time" magazine calls “a prime spot in the knowledge industry, which is largely based on corporate partnerships that wed electronics and the printed word so as to participate in the United States education explosion.” In other big deals since 1965 R.C.A. has taken over Random House, another well-known publisher; Xerox has bought

the Wesleyan University Press and Raytheon has acquired D. C. Heath, the Boston textbook publisher. Time Inc. and General Electric have formed a 50-50 partnership in a new company called General Learning Corporation. Litton Industries of California is trying to buy the American Book Company. These moves, involving as they do the influx of big money into what used to be an old-fashioned trade, are bringing about consequential changes in its nature. According to one editor: “The book boom is changing publishing from a stodgy gentleman’s profession into big business.” Other editors and publishing executives deplore what they consider undue commercialism, which they think will cramp individual enterprise and ultimately lead to “standard banks of books.”

Not all publishers agree. For instance, Mr Bennett Cerf, chairman of Random House and perhaps the best known of publishers because of his television appearances agrees strongly. He notes that and his sense of humour, disR.C.A. has not tried to take over editorial control of Random House, and believes that the big corporations will not seek to handle the publishing of general works such as novels and poetry. Interviewed the other day by the “New York Times,” Mr Cerf said: “These huge corporations are interested in the expansion of textbook publishing and the entrance of electronic equipment into education. They like best sellers, but they will leave ‘trade’ publishing to people who know about it This business has to be run by people who live books. A publishing house without a soul will wither away.” Whether this is wishful thinking or not remains to be seen. There have been other cases of big corporations taking over outside enterprises in the present trend to diversify their activities and, after professing a hands-off policy, proceeding to interfere all down the line. The control by C.B.S. of the New York Yankees’ basebail team is a case in point However, the basic question about these radical changes in American publishing is whether they will offer the

reading public a wider and better choice of books, or whether they will restrict their output to what sells best, thereby pandering to the lowest common taste. In fact, some observers are asking whether the present boom has not already brought about a decline in the standards of American literature. The answer, looking dispassionately at the present output, seems to be that there is still plenty of scope for quality books as well as for trash. If “hard-core sex” is selling well—and it must be realised that such sensational paperbacks have more than 120,000 retail outlets in drug stores and the like, as against only 3000 bookshops for hardcover books—it is also the fact that good books are selling well. On the present best seller list, for instance, are: among non-fiction titles, “Madame Sarah” by Cornelia Otis Skinner, "Inside South America” by John Gunther, “Games People Play" by Eric Berne, and “Rush to Judgment" by Mark Lane. Best selling novels include “The Birds Fall Down” by Rebecca West, “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” by Robert Crichton, and "The Captain” by Jan Hartog. Such books represent almost a licence to print money for their publishers. True, they are only a small portion of the total published, but they more than make up for the failures. Thus James Michener’s novel “The Source” was said to have yielded its publisher a profit of more than $BOO,OOO (about £286,000). William Mauchester’s “The Death of a President” is expected to break all records. According to the author, It will give the Kennedy Memorial Library alone ssm. (about (£1,800,000). In the light of these facts and figures, one must conclude that books in America are indeed booming and that there are no grounds for undue concern either about the declining standard or about the future prosperity of the industry.