THE BOOK TRADE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5288, 18 June 1928, Page 4

THE BOOK TRADE.

WRITERS AND READERS. PUBLIC AND LITERATURE. Sir Ernest Benn, the head of one of the leading publishing firms in: London, has been saying some interesting things about the book trade in Great Britain. He points out that the annual output of new books (including reprints) in Great Britain is in the neighbourhood of 12,000, and! that, according to the census figures, there are 11,000 booksellers in the country. Assuming that booksellers on the average employ two assistants, it takes three men a whole year to sell one of the books that have been published.

“If you give each of these 12,000 books,” continued Sir Ernest Benn, “the very liberal, circulation of 3750 copies each, which I believe to be a gross exaggeration, you will, see that each one of the people who live in Great Britain buys only one book every year. I do not believe that actually they do buy anything like that, because I do not think that the books published on ani .average sell 3750 copies each; but, even at that generouls estimate, the very best that the English public does for literature 'is to buy, on an average, one book per year per person. Now, look at those figures in another way. If you consider that each book published involves a. business: total of £5O0 — which, again, is a liberal estimate but, taking the big books with the small, let us call it £5O0 —you wvll find that we as a nation, have a book trade worth £6,000,000 a year. “Let me give you another figure or, two. Beer, wines, and spirits. £315,000,000 ; tobacco, £180,000,000 ; milk, £76,000,000; bread, £80,000,000. To get the impression into your mindte of the real position of the book trade, and the r.eiEvl estimate which the public puts on literature by comparison with other matters, you will see we spend about 120 times as much on food f°i' the stomach as we do on food for the brain. Suppose that every family in the land were to spend the modest sum of £lO a year oil books, you would have a, trade of £90,000,000, or 15 times as many books as we have to-day. If every family bought, a book each week you would have an output of books of 450,0'00,000 per annum.