SHAW GEORGE BERNARD: (1856-1950) Irish Playwright, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1925. An excel...

SHAW GEORGE BERNARD: (1856-1950) Irish Playwright, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1925. An excel...
SHAW GEORGE BERNARD: (1856-1950) Irish Playwright, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1925. An excellent T.L.S., G. Bernard Shaw, two pages, 4to, n.p. (on his personal printed stationery with addresses in Welwyn and London), 25th November 1949, to A.S.E. Ackermann. Shaw writes on the subject of authors and publishers and states, in part, 'Many authors print at their own expense and publish ''on commission'': that is, deliver the books printed and bound, paid for and ready for sale, to the publisher with his imprint; and he sells them for a commission of 10 or 15%. But as he also does the necessary dealing with the printer and binder as well as the bookseller, the author may have no contact with them……The royalty system is a necessity for authors who have no capital, which is the plight of most of them. The publisher supplies the capital, and, as printers have to keep a huge plant and will give long credit rather than have it idly rusting, the publisher, if the book sells well, never puts his hand in his pocket at all. He makes 300% net on the venture and gives the author 10 or 15 or at the outside 20. The author who has capital enough to pay for the manufacture reverses the transaction and makes the 300%, giving the publisher 10 or 15. [John] Ruskin and Herbert Spencer are notable examples of this practice. [W.H.] Davies, the Supertramp poet, began by having a long poem printed and bound for cash across the counter and peddling it from door to door…..I gather that you, like Davies, are doing without a publisher; but you can find a reputable one (beware of pirates) who will take you on commission'. A letter of good content. One small tear to the edge of the right fold, not affecting the text or signature, otherwise VG Alfred S. E. Ackermann (1867-1951) Consultant Engineer and Secretary of the Society of Engineers. At the time of the present letter Ackermann was on the point of a 4th edition of his Popular Fallacies which had first been published by Cassell in 1907. The 1950 edition came out with the imprint of the Old Westminster Press, London, who had also printed his Scientific Paradoxes and Problems and their Solutions in 1925. Simpkin Marshall, the famous wholesalers, were the sole distributors, so it appears Ackermann followed Shaw's advice.