ahead fur of had smashed French A l l and outer rhm, to through of w o nbark
ground bad lost,
to ground the had fro
fold had to itany wonder thatoventhe --
troop" m y wonder And
Who WasThere You.Knew
War md in
History
of
the World War
N o wComplete
had
been trying to sell the books as the mosthistory of the war. And
go. Because the war was but recently over
most people felt, rightfully enough, that
out yet and that would wait to get their history
the real, inside story was available. So we had to find
We found it in a premium: six little volumes of intensely
interesting true stories of the war. We offered them free
if
the reader would send in his order at once. What hap-
pened? Instead of 5,000 sets in more than two years, we
sold nearly 35,000 in less than one year!
Then the sale dragged. What should we do? What had
succeeded on Henry?
A
last-chance offer? So the sec-ond year we made it "Your last chance to get True Stories
free!" and sold another 25,000 sets!
After the sale was all over, and neither "True Stories" nor any other premium seemed able to resurrect it, we still sold
about with the old standby-the damaged-set letter.
That
is
one letter that has never failed us after any big sale.We used it on Henry, we used it on the Photographic
tory of the Civil
War,
we used it on the War History-andlater, as you will see, it worked just as successfully on travel-
ing bags, and even on bed blankets for the Warren people!
You see, in selling any big stock of books, you are bound
to accumulate a large number of "rubbed" o r slightly dam- aged sets, perfectly good in every respect except that they
cannot be sold as new books. Many of them have had the
corners "bunged up" in being returned by customers after
examination. Many others have a page torn or are thumb
marked, but for all practical purposes they are as good as new
books. They form the basis for the damaged-set sale.
The trouble with us usually has been that these
set sales so f a r outpulled any ordinary circulars that the orders kept rolling in long after the damaged sets were gone. On the War History, for instance, we actually had some 3,000
damaged sets, and we got about 10,000 orders! Those extra
orders were not costing us anything, so it really was profitable to fill them with brand new books rather than turn them down!
This me of a time when we were holding a similar
many more orders than we bargained for. One day the ship-
ping clerk happened to come through my office. "How are
the damaged bags holding out, John?"
I
asked him."Oh,
we're getting enough," he said, "but," he confided, "I'm get- ting darned tired kicking holes in the sides of the packing cartons just to make those bags look damaged!"
Here is the type of letter that caused all this "trouble":
A IMPERFECT SETS AT A BIG DISCOUNT!
DEAR SIR:
In the rush and excitement of selling, in two years, 75,000 sets of the History of the World War, there was no time to pay at-
tention to technically imperfect or slightly injured sets, except to lay them aside as they appeared.
Some of them were wrongly bound, some slightly damaged from stockroom handling-so slightly that you would have to make a close inspection to discern the damage, but still-you know how it is-they cannot be sold as perfect books.
So rather than send them back to the bindery and give the binders the profit of re-binding, we have decided to let the ad- vantage go to a few book-lovers-to people like yourself who love good books for the books' sake and not for trifling details about them-and to offer these magnificent sets at 30% off the regular price !
157 Sets Left!
We have just 157 sets of these books to sell at this low price. When they are gone, it will be impossible to get the History of
the World War at less than its regular price, but while these few
sets last, you may have one of them at this big discount and you can pay for it in little, easy monthly payments.
Every set we guarantee to be in satisfactory condition. In some cases only one volume is not quite perfect. But as only definite number of sets were contracted for with paper maker, printer and binder, one "hurt" volume means that a whole set even though four volumes are ab- solutely perfect, and in some cases it takes an expert to find
In one case the binder made a mistake, and bound certain vol- umes of a set with gray linings and the other with blue linings. For all purposes these sets are perfect. Some sub- scribers might even prefer blue and gray linings, as sheets and covers are mainly without a blemish.
will,of course, ship the books subject to your approval, to be returned at our expense if not satisfactory;-we always do that.
Signing and mailing the enclosed card puts the burden of proof us and incurs not the slightest obligation.
But you must act at once-there are only 157 sets left-and the best ones will naturally go to those who reply first. So sit down right now and put your name on the enclosed card and drop it in the mail!
Very truly yours,
How is it that a letter which sells histories and
0.
Henrystories in unusual volume is just as successful in selling bed blankets and traveling bags?
Because the one constant factor in selling is human reac-
tions. We seldom try to sell merchandise. We sell ideas.
And my experience has been that a fundamentally sound idea that will sell books in great volume will be just as successful in moving traveling bags or bed blankets or any other mer- chandise, if properly adapted to them.
The adapting is the job. Many writers make the mistake
of thinking that if they copy the wording of a successful let-
ter, their letter is bound to pull too. There is no bigger
mistake. The wording counts for little. I t is the way you
adapt the idea back of the successful letter that counts.
The best illustration of this
I
have seen was at Warren.A
couple of men who had been with the Warren company forseveral years-one in the advertising and the other in the list department-felt that they had all the information they
needed as to copy, lists, and products, and started a rival mail
order company of their own, getting a local merchant to
They used the same lists of names the Warren company had been using, they copied letters and circulars almost word for word, they offered the same products-yet from the very
beginning they were a failure. And in a couple of years
they passed completely out of the picture.
Why?
A
dearthideas. They thought mere words could do the trick.
Words are empty sounds. It is the images back of
ALL THE SETS published by this New York publisher
ran into such sales figures as $1,000,000. The
and War Histories are rare birds, and fortunate indeed is he
who gets hold of them. There has to be something remark-
able about the work itself, as a rule, although it is even more important that there be something remarkable about the ad- vertising, as Nelson Doubleday proved when he took an ordinary book of etiquette and sold a million copies of it by extraordinary advertising.
Not every book will lend itself to such a sale even with the finest advertising, but the sale of any book can be greatly
stimulated by the proper kind of advertising. It is merely
a matter of finding the primal human motive to which your appeals-be it love or gain or fear or ambition-and then directing your appeal at that motive.
When
I
went with this company, it had on hand about5,000 sets of Rudyard the left-overs of a big sale
several years earlier. The sale over, had languished
for a while. But a new letter brought it promptly back to
life, and the
5,000
sets changed hands in a few weeks' time.Not a large matter, of course, but every
$150,000
sale helpsby that much to swell the grand total.
We
could have sold a great many more, but manufacturingmoney into a set of books that had, for a while at least, been
so hard to move. Here is the letter that moved what we had:
The long winter evenings are here.
Do you want to make them different this year-want to get more and profit out of than ever before?
If do, then you want something we've got. This is the first letter telling our friends about it. It is the complete works of Rudyard the greatest living writer and poet-the first complete collection ever published of all his wonderful stories, tales, and poems.
And in every single story throughout the 4,500 pages, there is a thrill for you-some mystery of old India, some human tangle that keeps you enthralled until the last word is told-some tale of love or war.
It may be the story of Hans, the blue-eyed Dane and Anne of Austria-it may be about spy that got aboard an English battleship and the glorious joke they played upon him. It may be a tale of the old Irish who took Lungtungpen, naked as they were born.
It may be one of his stories for children-about Wee Willie Winkle, who marched out alone to fight an Indian tribe-of
and man-cub of the Jungle--or Kim, the most precious little imp that ever walked in the pages of a book.
Or, it may be one of his immortal poems that have the lilt and the swing of a martial
is East and West is Westw-but there are hundreds of them. But whatever one it is, if it's by Rudyard it is a won- derful story or poem-one that will jolt you right out of your- self and into another world and won't let you go until you have finished it.
There are GO thrilling stories and 35 whole bound in silk cloth, in twenty-five volumes with gilt tops and gold lettering on the backs.
Let us send these twenty-five volumes to you at our own ex-
pense for a week's free examination. The enclosed card brings them to you by prepaid express. If you like them you can send
months. If not you can return them without question, at our expense.
Remember, there is no sale, no obligation to keep the books until you have tried them out for a week in your own home and are satisfied. Just let us send them to you for a week's examination. But remember too, that paper is so scarce that we were able to get only enough to bind up 5,000 sets and it may be months before we are able to get enough more to bring out another edi- tion, so if you would be sure of getting a set at the present low prices, put your name on the enclosed card NOW and drop in the mail.
Yours truly,
Another set that had been gathering dust on the shelves for a number of years was the Spanish and Italian Romances.
These never had done well. We had about 3,300 bound sets
on hand, and enough unbound sheets to make about 5,000
more.
With
the following letter we cleaned up 3,300 sets at$10.50, then bound the 5,000 sheets and closed them out at
$4.98.
Considering that the stock had long since been writ- ten off, there was a goodly profit in the sales at these prices, especially since the cost per order proved to be very low.T H E Y LAST-53% OFF! mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. DEAR READER:
You know how everyone loves a good story, how young and old
alike will listen wide-eyed to tales of mystery or romance, to stories of love or adventure.
Here is your chance to get the stories on which the literature of a dozen languages is based-AT A 53%.
In cleaning out our stock-room to make ready for the big new edition of Henry soon to be delivered, we found that we had
Spanish and Italian, only one limited edition of which has ever been printed.
The finest flower of four centuries of Spanish imagination, the choicest masterpieces of six hundred years of Italian story- tellers, have here been gathered together into one complete set of eight volumes, beautifully illustrated, bound in silk cloth, and stamped in gold. From Cervantes to Ibanez, from Boccaccio to the greatest story-tellers of Spain and Italy are here represented by their most delightful works, more than half of them now presented to English readers for the first time. These eight volumes were made up to sell at a price of $15.00.
In the post-war deflation, that price was reduced to $10.50, and three thousand sets were sold at that figure.
Now there are only some few hundred left-not enough to ad- vertise in our usual way. So, while they last, we make you this offer:
Mail the enclosed card, without money, and we will send you these eight volumes at 53% less than the $10.50 price-$4.98. There's no margin in that for collection expense, as you can guess, so we ask you to pay the postman or expressman your $4.98 when the volumes reach you. If, after reading them for a week, you are not entirely satisfied-if at the end of that time you are not convinced that this is the biggest book bargain you have ever had-send them back at our expense and your $4.98 will be refunded immediately and in full. There are no strings to this offer. The $4.98 is yours when you want it.
Bat remember, there are only some hundreds of these sets left, and they will not last long. S o send your card NOW-this min-
ute! This is your last chance!
Earnestly yours,
With the foregoing letter, we sent a six by nine inch, four-
page circular. At the top of the first page was the picture of
fine-looking man with a beautiful in his arms. Caption
copy follow:
The Fateful Kiss-
first he thought it a stupid joke-then a horrible mistake.
be his wife-had set him a task so grotesque, so cruel, that it made his blood run cold.
Madly he had loved her-boldly he had wooed her-but all in vain. Her heart seemed of stone. Then in desperation he had vowed to do any deed she might ask of him if she would grant him one kiss. And this was her
If you would hear a story so weird, so strange as to be almost uncanny-if you would know what desperate motives can ravage men's minds and women's hearts-read this story of a man's love and trial. It is just one of the
T A L E S T H E S P A N I S H A N D I T A L I A N
The Source of the Greatest Literature in Languages Here are the original stories that Shakespeare drama- tized in "Romeo and Juliet," in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and a dozen other plays that have charmed and delighted audiences without number. Here is the dramatic tale which is renowned the world over in "Cavalleria Rusticana." Here is Boccaccio's "Patient Griselda" which Grimm, Anderson and even Chaucer have retold in various forms. Here is the original of Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn.''
Here, too, is "The Hunchback," which has appeared in every language of Europe; and "The Three Blind Beggars," which has been retold time and again for the past thousand years. In
short, here in this set are the original stories on which the literature of a dozen languages is based.
The circular went on to tell
of
a score of other stories that had been retold in popular styleby
famous authorsof
a dozen lands, and on the inside pages gave a few tense situa- tions from them, like "The Fateful Kiss," each leading into adescription of the other stories in the set. The last page was devoted to the bargain offer and the fact that this was really the last chance the reader would have to get the books at any price.
It
ended with the usual urge to use the post card to send for the books for free examination.Barton's