The American Scene; The Publisher in Chicago

Good morning. This is Howard Vincent, viewing the arts for the American scene for Illinois Institute of Technology. Behind the Art of Literature, on which we've had many programs, is the commercial fact of books, the distribution of books, say the sale of books, the publishing of them, the production of them. And since this program is showvinistically and enthusiastically tied to Chicago, concerned with Chicago, Chicago in the arts, I want to take up the day, the publishing of books in Chicago. Now, if you will think very rapidly about that problem, you will say, well, what publishing is there in Chicago? When you think of Houghton, Mifflin, Harper, Scribner, McMillan, all the big companies, trade companies that is, are in New York City or New York and Boston, with very few exceptions. Now, why is it that the city of this size, this importance, this centrality, this activity in the arts, has

not had more publishing? Well, now some of you will come back and say that there is a publishing house in Chicago, there are two or three. They are, of course, the University of Chicago Press and the Northwestern University Press. But those are special houses, partly subsidized and connected with the publishing of scholarly books primarily. But an ordinary trade house, no, there, I can think of none, offhand, except one, which most of you know about, and that is the Henry Regnery Publishing Company. And so I have asked the owner and the publisher Henry Regnery to come and discuss this problem of publishing in Chicago. Mr. Regnery, you heard me talking about this problem. Can you cut in here and say what do you think about it? Well, I suppose one reason that there is more publishing in New York than there is out here is because the country started in the east and publishing is a very traditional business, I would say. That is, it follows traditional patterns. It's got started in New York

and Boston and just by force of habit stayed there. Another factor, of course, is the concentration in New York of all the things that go with publishing, practically all of the literary agents are in New York, the book clubs are in New York, the principal book reviewing publications are published or edited in New York, so that you have a concentration not only of talent and of the sources of manuscripts, but also of the means by which books are made known. You see, it's probably a hand and egg business, which comes first. They are there because the publishing is there or the publishing is there because they are there. That's a problem. That's quite true. We have had publishing in the past, the famous Fisk and Kimmel and Stone, which is an editorial tree, but not very many. Yes, there has been publishing in the past in Chicago, and I think publishing will continue to grow in Chicago, not only because Chicago is a center in itself, but also because the Middle West is,

I think, is probably playing an increasingly important part in the cultural life of this country. The universities in the Chicago area are contributing to, they contribute, produce manuscripts, of course. Many writers come to Chicago, came from Chicago, Ernie's Hemingway, for example, who might just well have been published here, if they've been in Chicago published, I suppose. Exactly. I think that this, I think there probably is a slow breaking away from the monopoly of New York, but of course this monopoly, as I try to say in the beginning, isn't just the publishing, it doesn't involve just the publishing of books, it involves the whole area of communications past. The new services are nearly all concentrated in New York. So when you have a book and you want to make it known, you have all the vehicles to do the job at your fingertips, and in New York, while in Chicago, you have, of course, there are book publications, book reviewing publications published here, but the main ones are in New York, and that does present something of a problem for you. All right, then. Then

there is some hope for the future, though, because there are signs, for instance, some of the big publishers in New York here, are putting up large offices out here in this area. I know out in Geneva recently, Holden Milfen, Open Upper Enormous, Midwest Book Center. Now that doesn't mean they're going to publish from there, but it shows that they realize that here, the center of location is important, and eventually if the New York Theatre is being closed down, it's going to damage New York, a number of signs of crumbling in New York to our advantage. I think that's correct. We have to be a little patient, you'd say. But you were very brave where you are, have you found you to start off on a publishing venture here? How many years ago did you start? Well, I started in 1948. My president firm was incorporated in 1948. I published a few things before that. But the president firm really started on March 1, 1948, or whether I was brave or foolish is hard to say. I published here because largely because I was here, and Ted always lived here. I think a Chicago publisher has advantages and disadvantages. I think one great advantage a Chicago

publisher has is a certain kind of independence. I think that in New York, there's a tendency for all the people involved in publishing, and which, after all, is a very concentrated and quite a small business. There's a small group of people they see each other. I think they intend to become rather ingrown in their ideas. By being in Chicago, you get away from that. I think that... You get a fresh point of view. I think I've published books, and I think I've come to represent a point of view, which, in a way, is associated with Chicago. It's perhaps one can say it's more American. It's more... It certainly is a rather different point of view than the preventing one in New York. One of the best -known books I published is one called A Conservative Mind by a man named Russell Kirk, who lives in a very small place in Macosta, Michigan. This book was turned down by one of the big New York houses.

Before I got it, it probably would eventually have been published in New York because it's a book of a quality which simply can't be ignored. But I think that this book, in a sense, represents a point of view which is more characteristic of the Middle West than of New York or Boston. Well, that book is certainly how to commend us. I want to say Vogue even then. And Russell Kirk is certainly gone ahead and gave him a name, and he's been writing so many articles, and so on since it's... But you have a chance then to step in and do things because you aren't so high -bound in playing this game in musical chairs. I think that's correct. I think in the area of politics, I think the New York publishers, in a sense, represent the position... Oh, I would say of Arthur Schlazinger, Jr., or Mr. Galbraith of Harvard, which is certainly not my position. And I think it's easier to take a sort of independent position I have from Chicago than it would be in

New York. Is there... In being here, there is no special requirement imposed upon you by the circumstances of Chicago, to publish certain kinds of books. Do you have a quite a spread of books? Yes, I publish a good many. We publish quite a few translations, books of foreign origin. We're publishing next... We've just published a book by Ezra Pound, for example, who of course lives in Italy now, which just as well could have been published... geographical point of view. It could have been published in New York. I think from an ideological point of view, this is on ignorance in the decline of American civilization. Well, no, this is very interesting. Russell Kirk, and the one hand, Ezra Pound on the other. That's a certain originality. Well, I think another aspect of our regionality is Riley and Leap. About a year ago, we took over the old Chicago publishing firm, Riley and Leap. They were the original publishers of the Oz books, also Eddie Guest. Really Eddie Guest too? Eddie Guest,

yes. So we have not only Ezra Pound, but Eddie Guest too. Strange, yes. That was there. Too strange. The first Oz book was published when 1924... 1900. The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900. In Chicago, the author, El Frank Baum, had to pay to get it published. They thought it wouldn't sell. And with a great difficulty, he raised enough money to get the typeset. And it was a tremendous success immediately. But the firm went out of business, and then Bob Emerald took over the Wizard of Oz, Bob Emerald in Indianapolis, and then two people connected with this firm. I forgot the name of it. Started Riley and Britain. One was Riley. I think it was the salesman and Britain was connected with the previous firm. And they took over El Frank, by all and published all of his books, and then on. There's a book being written. There's a book that has been written on them. Maybe you ought to publish it on the life of El Frank. Oh, we're going to, next year. We have the manuscript. A man at the Tribune. Russ McFaul. Oh, good. Yes. I've seen that. In fact,

he and I discussed years ago working on an article on El Frank. Oh, it's an interesting story. It's an interesting story. We thought, well, let's do this together, because we were both fascinated with Wizard of Oz. Everybody but librarians. Libraries. Library. They test this book. They buy them, though. Oh, good. That's hard. But he went ahead and did this. And he's found some fascinating material. Oh, yes. That's a wonderful story. Quite a story, because people think of just the Wizard of Oz. He's done so many other things. But, well, that book, of course, is made successful, partly, because of stones. Oh, yes. Famous. Performance. Yes, sure. But do you publish any poetry? Well, we've published some poetry. I've published Roy Campbell. Yes. Well, I think three collected books of Roy Campbell. And a smaller book called Talking Bronco. He's now dead. Was he living here in the United States? No. He was here on a visit. Oh. He visited the United States twice. And then it was killed about three years ago in Portugal. Yeah. And we've published some other poetry. But Portray is a very difficult problem.

I remember one day talking... That's a prestige business, isn't it? I remember one day talking to Frank Morley, with a brother of Christopher Morley, who was at that time connected with Aaron Spotiswood and London. And he asked me if we published any poetry. And I said, well, we hadn't done much. And we could hardly afford to. Either way, you know, it's a big problem, Portray. He said, if a man named Bill Shakespeare came to this place with a manuscript, we'd look it over and say, well, Mr. Shakespeare, it's all a good poetry, but Portray just doesn't pay. Yes. Exactly. Well, it doesn't. Now, your pound will. Well, the pound probably. Well, of course, this is not Portray. This is... It's not going to pay fabulously. Yeah. Anybody. Except Elliot. Maybe. Elliot and Frost. Yes. And Eddie Guest. Eddie Guest. Yes. Eddie Guest made a fortune of his poetry. And his poem is still selling out. It still sell very well. They do. It still sell very well. How many volumes did he publish? Well, he did. We have one volume called collected verse. I don't think he called it Portray. He called it verse. He's a very honest man and a very superior man. He... This is a big fat book. That sells very well. And there are several collections,

several smaller collections of his poetry. How do you go about getting manuscripts in this area? Or do you... You don't call this area necessarily? No. A good many things come in. Just by themselves. Over the transum, as the publisher say. We get... I would say we probably get at least 500 manuscripts a year just unsolicited. And then we watch European publications and a number of books we've ordered. That is a book we published last year, for example, book by James Burnham, the author of the managerial revolution. This is a book on Congress, which we finally published on the title Congress in the American tradition. This was an ordered book, that is. A commission book. I suggested the book to Burnham and he wrote it. Do you do that very often? I would do that sometimes. Yes. I know some publishers do a lot of it. Simon and Chester. Yes, I have most 90 % of their books here in that way. But the... A lot of these 500 and plus manuscripts over the transum are commissioned or... How many do you publish a year? Well, regular trade

books. We are doing now about... I would say we probably do about 10 to 12 trade books a year. We published a fair number of religious books. I would say about the same number. And then we have a series of what are called quality paperbacks these days. That is these classics and so on, which sell all from a dollar to two dollars. We do... Well, I would say we're doing about a dozen to 16 a year of those. So... And then, of course, we have... On our writing list, we do quite a few juveniles. Yes. So, all taken together, we'd probably do about 40 books a year. Well, you're... I would gather from this. I don't want to look into your ledgers and so on. But I would gather that your... If it was 1948, it's been a constant expansion. Well, let's spend our sales have increased because we've had more books to sell. Yes. But I can't say we've made integrate financial. No, I'm not... No, but you... You certainly feel acquire rally and lean these others and get more and more titles. It's an expanding thing. Well, no publisher makes a fortune. Very few publishers of good trade books make a fortune. I think that... According

to the book publisher's counsel, trade publishing doesn't pay. That is the trade publishers who show a profit, show a profit only through their subsidiary rights. That is what they get from movies and book clubs and TV and so on. But trade book publishing itself doesn't pay. Oh, really? This is a sad story. This is a sad story, yes. Tell that one that James Brennan said to you about... Oh, it makes a publishing... Well, James Brennan, who was born and grew up in Chicago, asked me one day if I felt that people in Chicago were proud of having a publisher who was making a little bit of a splash in Chicago. And I said, well, I had to leave very little evidence of it. And I said that... I told him a story about walking along the street one day with a businessman in Chicago. And it was a day in the spring. It was dusty and windy. And I had to remark that Chicago was an off -the -dirty city. They stopped and looked at me and said, but it's a good place to make money. And Brennan said, that's the real Chicago spirit. Well, but I think there's more here than... There's more here than that, but if you will

examine the history of Chicago, any number of men have made that very remark at the good place. Well, we need that too. Yes, we need that. But we need other things also. Well, the signs are very clear that these other things are on weight. Oh, I think they are. Virgining. And with that, the publishing certainly will increase. Well, there's a... You don't want any competitors right now, of course, but... Well, I don't know that another publisher is a competitor in a true sense. Maybe a sense? I think they do. I think it would be a good thing if there are a few more publishers in Chicago. I think that the book publishers really only scratch the surface of the potential market for books. Oh, good. At least that's my feeling. That may be unjustified optimism. But it seems to me that in a country the size of this one, that there must be a larger market for books than any of us ever, ever find. Well, it is true, isn't it, that people criticize ourselves, that we are very low in not in literacy, high in literacy, and low in actual reading and reading of books. I have students in my classes, some of whom,

aside from their books, they have to read in their courses, do not read a book a year. Oh, I think that's probably true. Shocking in, of course, there are millions of people like that. And these are the people you want to touch. Well, somebody told me who discussed a book on a radio program in Chicago that every time he does this, he'll get dozens of calls from people asking, where do you buy a book? Yeah. They just don't know where books are bought. And of course, there aren't very many bookstores. Chicago albums have a few very good ones, but there are many towns of a hundred thousand, whether it is not a bookstore. No, no. And when you do get a bookstore, you can't find the books for the cards, the stationery, and for the erasers. Well, a poor man has to make a living. Sure he does. Wasn't there a book trade convention here recently? Yes, in June. I think the figure that I saw for the per capita consumption of books in this country was six tenths of a book per person per year. Oh, that's true. So it sold to a bookstore, which it isn't very much. But that's why I say that there must be a larger potential market than that. That is, I think many

people would buy books and read books if somehow or other, they could be more brought to their attention. Probably a probably distribution. I think it's probably distribution. I think it's partly, how do you find out about a book? I think if you're living in an ordinary town, and there isn't too much opportunity to even know that this is that book exists. Or there should be programs like this to bring books to people's attention, of course. Yes, but it's a paperback, partly an answer. Well, I think that's helping. I think these quality paperbacks are called books itself, or for a dollar to two dollars, are helping. Some extremely good books are published in that form. Of course, they can be distributed in places where hard -bound books would find it pretty more difficult to distribute hard -bound books. And they also have the advantage that a book store looks longer. That is a book store that stocks paperbacks. Well, we'll keep a paperback and stock almost indefinitely, so that it doesn't go out a day. While our current book is kept for

six months or so, and then it's been remaindered as we've sent back. And something else takes us place. Well, you certainly see on the every place you go, the paperbacks being used by, well, like coming down on the L today, I saw in my car a number of people. And fairly good paperbacks. Not just the busomy girls on the cover of paperbacks, but good ones. Well, I think there's a very good trend you can buy. Well, the big market for these better paperbacks is in the colleges, in college bookstores. Some of the colleges now have fine bookstores. I don't know whether you have one out at the Illinois Tech or not. Instead of just the usual little hole that I remember when I was in college, we bought your textbooks. They have a really good bookstore. We have much better than that. Where paperbacks are displayed. And where you can receive what's available. Yes. But I think this is the thing that's increasing the market for books. That is the books are being made available, and people can see them. And they know

what can be had. Well, now you put your finger on a hopeful sign. You have this tremendous increase in college populations. And these people do have better bookstores to work with the paperbacks. And the students are buying them. I went down to Ohio to a university, an ordinary university down there. And I told the students, now you can buy these books rather inexpensively. I gave them the usual sign books. But they went out and bought a number of extra ones, because they could pick them up for a dollar and a quarter. And they were building little libraries right there. I think this is quite generally the case. As a good example of this, we published a book by a professor of philosophy. The University of St. Louis called the existentialist. Oh, yes. It published us about six or seven years ago in a hard -bound edition. And over these six or seven years, we published, I think we sold 3 ,000 copies. It wasn't the best seller by any means. Well, it ran out of stock, and we decided to bring it out as a paperback. So we brought out last year's a paperback. I think it sells for a dollar forty -five. And we've already sold five thousand. We've already ordered a second printing. I'm one of the purchases, you know. I was using a good amount of courses, and it's a very useful book.

Yes, very useful. But I think that the paperback had a much larger sale largely because the book was available. It wasn't so much the price. The other book was, I think, $3 .50. But I think a big factor was simply availability. Well, I agree. Availability is probably the key. But if there's a difference between a $3 .50, $4 .00 book, and $1 .45. Sure. I noticed most of the paperbacks don't go above two. They can go below the $2 mark. A few are now. Yes, they are. They're having a creep in there. But I know for a dollar forty -five, it's like eating peanuts, you know. You have a dish of peanuts and you want more than you should. And you buy more paperbacks. Not than you should, but then you're going to afford to make. My book bill is tripled because of paperbacks. And I hope that everybody does. How light a percentage you say of paperbacks? Do you take your regular titles and put them in? Well, we've done this in a few cases. But most of ours are classics that is in philosophy and so on. We have Aristotle and Plato and Marcus Aurelius and so on. You

do the number of the great books, don't you? We at one time published the books for the great books. Yes. So our paperback series grew out of that. I see. That's how we got into these classics. The then problem of you've re - You've re - Have a new format. You have a new format. New type. But since our market is larger in the colleges, we have pretty much made our editorial policy adjusted or fitted to that. That is the college market. We probably kind of books that we thought would either be used in classes for what do you call it? Collateral reading? Or books would be of interest to college students. Do you send out the number of salesmen? Oh, yes. We cover all the bookstores. At least twice a year. We send out circuiters and all that sort of thing. All the usual things that are done in the book business. Yes. Well, but you don't regard, I made a statement at the opening of the show that the University of Chicago and Northwestern University press aren't trade publishers. In the sense,

they are competition for you in a way, but in a way they're not, I think. Well, in the sense they're competition, for example, it's an existential book. They have those. Yeah, they have those. There are several books on the University of Chicago press has its own list of paperbacks. Yes. And there are several books on their list I would like to have had. If they didn't have their own paperback list, I might have gotten them. But on the other hand though, I think it increases the, as I say, the availability of books. I don't think there's too much competition. It doesn't like the automobile business. It's like the automobile industry where everybody has a, has no difficulty finding a place to buy a car. But we need more places to buy books. Yes. Of course, the drugs are helping out, but they, and some of the drug stores are carrying some of the better paperbacks. Yes, they are. In New York, there are these things called paperback galleries. Oh, yes. Several of those, they sell lots of books. We don't have many of those here, do we? Well, our crocs have a bigger and gnarless one. You know, they have enormous,

one of the best in the country. Yes. And they sell lots of books. Yes. Well, that's it. It's like going into some well -stocked cafeteria to go into that place. I want to eat everything inside. That's a full lot of people. Yes. A full of people, and they buy a lot of them there. But the, in the publishing here in Chicago, is there much publishing? Do you publish anything of the Chicago, purely Chicago character? Histories or things like that? Well, I can't think of anything. I published one or two books on Chicago. We did two books by a Methodist minister who had lived in Chicago as a student in a settlement house. And he became very much interested in the syndicate and all those all -related activities of Chicago. And we did a book of his called Syndicate City. Oh, yeah. Another book called, which wasn't too good, a book called Chicago's left bank, in which he, oh, he talked about the 20s, you know, when Chicago was supposed to have been something of a cultural center, literary center. Yes. I

noticed that you put out several years ago a very beautiful picture book on Rome. Yes. I remember that. And I think I have a coffee of that. I think it's a nice picture book on Chicago, maybe. Well, I think it'll be a good thing one these days. Get some good photographer in it. It's a good text writer. It's a curious thing, that I'm back to the original picture about Chicago here. And that is the city, the city becomes to, as you get to know it, any great city, gains the life of its own. It assumes a personality. And I don't think Chicago has been only one person, two people, maybe, have touched Chicago, whether it is like. And they've done it in a kind of sentimental, general way, in that one in San Brick, of course. And, but he missed a lot of Chicago, because he wrote so far back. Nelson Algrand did it in an article, which is a kind of poetic effusion, and there are the solemn histories of Chicago. And, of course, I'm indebted to a rather good book out there. But a

genuine poetic, factual study of Chicago still needs to be done. I think that's true. A smith in the book, I published, because Chicago's left bank tried to do that, but it wasn't really successful. It's a dangerous thing to do. You can get sentimental, you can get absurd, and so on. But I like the book. The book does come out like that. It's a very fine thing to have. The Chicago's played quite a part in the cultural life of this kind of we think about it. Louis Sullivan came from Chicago. Oh, yes. I think some of the, I think some of the pounds first poetry was published in Chicago. And poetry magazine. Yeah, poetry magazine. What was that? The first of T .S. Eliot was published in Chicago. Yeah, because that poetry magazine itself is a phenomenal thing. And sometimes I want to have a program on it. I think it's one of the most remarkable developments. Well, any study could be proud of it. And it came out here in Chicago. It's one of the things that shocks me, shocks me pleasantly. I'm pleased with it. There is poetry in Chicago. It's poetry magazine. It's been going so long, and the oldest one in the city. Where's that printed, by the way? Is that printed here in the city? I'm sure it is. I don't remember whether it is. Where do you have your books printed?

We have some printed in Chicago, and some printed in New Jersey, some printed in Indiana, depends on how it works out, and the type of book and the kind of production, so on. Are there many printers here in the city? Oh, yeah. Chicago is the biggest center for printing in the country, I think. Of course, you have the famous Donley Press. You have others too. Oh, yes. Chicago is a great center for printing. Not only the ordinary book, but the fine book. Oh, yes. And you can get any kind of print in Chicago. And all the telephone directories. Anything you want, magazines? Yeah. When I was abroad in this library, the United States Information Service Library, they had a lot of telephone directories there, and most popular books we had in the library. Looking up relatives. Oh, yeah. Looking up relatives, looking up business firms. Somebody wanted to get in touch with a silk firm in Chicago. He would come and look in the Chicago directories, and they were much used. And I was quite pleased to find out at the time that they were... I noticed they were all published here in Chicago. What do you think that then the

publishing in Chicago was going to be a growing thing? Oh, I think it probably is. I hope so. Yeah. I don't see how it can help, but the Chicago will certainly become increasingly important in the country, the Middle West, will. I don't see how. Well, it's found to be. It can help. Well, this has been doing the arts for the American scene. We've been lucky to have Henry Regnery of the Henry Regnery publishing company. The chief publishing company in Chicago to talk about this problem. Thank you very much. Thank you.