CHEAPER ENGLISH NOVELS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 4

CHEAPER ENGLISH NOVELS

Tho English men who constitute the directorate of the publishing firm of Victor Gollancz, Ltd., are assuming a dual personality. In their first and original capacity they will remain Messrs Gollancz; in their second, they will be Mundanus, Ltd. As Gollancz, they will continue to publish new novels, in cloth bindings, at the conventional price of '7s Cd. : As Mundanus, they will plunge into the unknown, issuing a series of new novels, declared to bo of equal excellence, in paper covers and at the price of 3s. Many critics and authors in England have been crying out for cheaper new books, the publishers, especially since the -war, have taken another view. Throughout Britain there is a firmly established practice of borrowing books from circulating libraries. The libraries must buy a certain number of copies of a new book, however expensive it may be, to satisfy the demands of their subscribers. The publishers can therefore generally rely on the purchase of a certain number of copies by the libraries— sufficient at least to cover the cost of production—and this security enables them to issue many books which under other circumstances could not have been published without loss. The decision to issue novels at 3s will impose on an English publisher the necessity of adopting the 1 American method. He will have to rely on readers who are ready to buy, rather than borrow, their new books. Each individual work will have to be widely advertised and vigorously pushed in the provinces. 'Though this may not lead to any increase in the total number of books read by the public, the effect should be that those in which tho publishers have most confidence will receive their full due of propaganda and encounter loss competition from unworthy rivals. The British market is suffering from over-produc-tion of third-rate books, whose elimination would clear the field for the firsts rate and the second-rate. Messrs Mundanus may or may not be able to make a commercial success of their venture; but, if their books are good, they deserve to.