Page 303 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

Faulkner would probably like Erskine Caldwell.

When Well of Loneliness was published, the brothers made a killing, buying
four hundred copies of this book, charging fifty cents per week rental and
allowing members to hold it for one week only. For two years the four
hundred volumes were in constant circulation. Another big renter was Mrs.
Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Four hundred copies of this book were
bought and kept in steady circulation.

Books like these bring in tidy profits to the Sullivans. They guessed wrong,
however, on Ulysses and, in this case, were overloaded with a book the
public did not want. They buy their books wholesale for 30 per cent off, or
from the publishers for 40 per cent off. This latter arrangement seldom
represents any saving, however, because of the cost of expressage.

When books are finished as renters and stop moving entirely, they are sold to
hospitals or other institutions and also to second-hand bookstores.
Getting personally acquainted with their clientele, knowing their tastes, and
having the patience and the time to come back if a girl is busy taking
dictation when they call (so that she can always depend upon the arrival of
her new book and the collection of her old one) have been chiefly responsible
for the many steady and well-satisfied customers which these two Sullivans
have accumulated. A satisfied customer in any business is the best
advertising it can have.

A Clipping Service for Artists

W

HILE Carl Jackson was selling magazine subscriptions to artists and their
friends, he learned that they frequently were at a loss for authentic
illustrations to follow in making drawings. In the larger cities, the public
libraries have files of illustrations but it takes a great deal of valuable time to
locate what is needed—and time to an artist is money. So he started a
clipping service for artists. During the past two years, he has made better than
fifteen hundred a year at practically no expense from this enterprise. “The