Book Reviews

Books for Sale: The Advertising and printed publications, book Promotion of Print since the Fif- notices might be interspersed teenth Century. Eds. Robin Myers, Mi- with other commodities and chael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote. services. Patent medicines New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, were distributed at book- 2009. 191p. alk. paper, $49.95 (ISBN shops. Book notices were 9781584562658). LC 2009-046880. fixed to the walls of bureaus “Advertising is part of life,” asserts Mi- of exchange, public gathering places that chael Harris in an essay on the selling and grew up in large urban centers to provide promotion of books. “It is not simply a de- information on labor and trade. The essay plorable spin-off.” Proof of that assertion by Phillippa Plock on an eighteenth- can be found in this delightful collection century Parisian trade card collection also based on papers presented at the 30th discusses such a gathering place, which Annual Book Trade History conference in France was called a bureau d’adresse. in Bloomsbury in November 2008. The es- Plock brings out the varied uses of printed says—by academics, librarians, and pub- paper materials, not only for advertising, lishing professionals—retain the brevity but for their aesthetic qualities, to stimu- and accessibility of oral presentations late conversation, or to wrap purchases. without sacrificing scholarly depth. The Such ephemeral paper materials made up book reads like a chronological sequence a large part of the printing trade, but most of microhistories. Each chapter stands of them have not survived. alone, while implicitly enriching those Like many of the other authors, that come before and after. The book is Charles Benson draws on business re- generously furnished with black-and- cords and correspondence to reconstruct white illustrations ranging from French advertising and the book trade in early trade cards to book jackets. nineteenth-century Ireland. Most books In her essay on “Sale Advertisements sold in Ireland at the time were imported for Books Printed in the Fifteenth Cen- from England or Scotland and marketed tury,” Lotte Hellinga examines 44 extant by sales representatives and through ads single sheets that were used for selling in newspapers and monthly and quarterly books, the “earliest witnesses to use of reviews. As in earlier centuries, publish- the printing press for retail purposes.” ers and booksellers were aware of quite She concludes that there is growing subtle national differences both in the “evidence for the big business of the book types of works likely to be wanted and trade” even in this early period. Julianne the way they could best be sold. Simpson’s piece on the selling of the Biblia As a mass market for books developed Regia shows how complex the trade had in the nineteenth century, the book trade become by the sixteenth century. The seems to have become more specialized. “shrewd” publisher Christopher Plantin The book jacket was an invention of that used royal subsidies, custom editions, century that is still with us today, even in presentation copies, sales agents, book the digital environment. As Alan Powers fairs, catalogs, and display posters to explains, paper jackets were first used to promote his polyglot Bible in 8 volumes. protect the book but later used to attract Boundaries between book selling and readers and provide information such general trade were not at all fixed, as Mi- as blurbs or author photos. A snobbish chael Harris shows in his study of printed prejudice against book jackets held sway advertising in London around 1700. In among publishers. Colorful jackets were 592 Book Reviews 593 associated with women’s and children’s constant was the fact that books need to be books and compared to a pretty woman’s connected to readers.—Jean M. Alexander, clothes. Nowadays, retro book jackets are Carnegie Mellon University. all the rage. Book prizes are largely a creature of the Mistakes in Academic Library Manage- twentieth century. They were intended to ment: Grievous Errors and How to reward serious authors and encourage Avoid Them. Ed. Jack E. Fritts, Jr. Lan- reading in general, but did they actually ham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2009. 132p. help to sell books? In his essay “The Use alk. paper, $50 (ISBN 9780810867444). and Effect of Literary Prizes in the Late LC2009-016939. Twentieth Century,” Peter Strauss finds This concise collection of essays, each that, with the sole exception of the Gon- written by an experienced library ad- court Prize in France, they rarely did. The ministrator, presents ten management author’s reputation and word of mouth mistakes commonly made by supervi- were more important routes to popular- sors working in academic libraries. The ity. Strauss offers a detailed look at sales contributors describe errors made in of Booker Prize winners and especially communication, project management, Salmon Rushdie, whose novel Midnight’s staffing, knowledge management, pro- Children, was the first to buck the trend. gram planning, change management, and Nowadays the effect of the Booker on developing power and influence in the sales is “seismic.” campus arena. Solutions are presented The eighth and final essay in the to help managers avoid these pitfalls. In collection, “Advertising Books Online: his introduction to this volume, editor Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” is a Jack Fritts states that the purpose of this little different from the rest. It is not a book is “… to offer ideas and suggestions work of historical scholarship, but an to help others avoid the snares some of account of the online used book business us have already fallen into.” He stresses written by Udo Göllmann, Manager of that good communication skills are vital Sales and Accounts at AbeBooks, Europe. to the success of an effective administra- Göllmann believes that the great strength tor, a theme that links the essays together. of the Internet is that it offers “the largest Each chapter begins with a scenario possible selection of books” to the reader. that illustrates a managerial miscalcula- Competition and collaboration among tion. This stratagem sets the stage for online mediators and vendors is in con- the theory and advice that is presented stant flux. Göllmann provides a formula in the body of the essay. Since this book for business success that has allowed is designed to be a practical guide, the AbeBooks to survive, which includes an authors concentrate on the presentation active marketing plan. of solutions that might serve to resolve One of the virtues of this collection is the scenario effectively. Each solution is that the authors do not press general ideas contrasted to the inappropriate strate- and interpretations; instead, they limit gies used within the case study. In some themselves to what the evidence sup- essays, the suggestions are backed by a ports. This allows the reader to participate brief explanation of related management in the act of historical interpretation based theory. References are provided so that on primary sources, but with the guidance readers can refer to more theoretical of an expert. There may be lessons to be works on the topic. drawn from the history of book advertis- Unfortunately, the essays are incon- ing, but the main purpose and pleasure sistent in quality. “Keeping Your Library of this book is to understand a little better on the Right (Correct) Side of Campus what life was like in times different from Politics” and “Developing Power and our own. The one thing that remained Influence as a Library Manager” would