ART OF THE SALE
Advertising
Subscription books required a new method of sales which meant employing a door-to-door agent. To find agents, publishers would advertise in magazines, newspapers, and other books as well as by letters sent directly to individuals and broadsides.
Here is a broadside advertisement seeking subscription sales agents.
Image retrieved from: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case1.html
Here is a broadside advertisement seeking subscription sales agents.
Image retrieved from: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case1.html
Canvassing Books
Canvassing books were books and materials used by subscription sales agents when selling a book. A publisher would provide agents with these materials that could be as simple as a sample binding with a few sample pages of text and/or illustrations or as elaborate as the one here. Elaborate ones such as this might include a broadside, a letter advertising the book, a letter addressed to the agent, pamplets on how to sell the book, sales logs, certificates of agreement to be given to the subscriber as a receipt, and sales speech slips to provide the agent with talking points during a sale.
Images retrieved from http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case3.html
Images retrieved from http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case3.html
Testimonials
Frank S. Dobbins
Error's Chains: How Forged and Broken
New York: Stanhope Publishing House, 1883
Testimonials were often used as a persuasive tool to make a purchase. Testimonials may be printed in a book intself like the one here, or more often may be obtained by the agent.
Image retrieved from http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case5.html
Error's Chains: How Forged and Broken
New York: Stanhope Publishing House, 1883
Testimonials were often used as a persuasive tool to make a purchase. Testimonials may be printed in a book intself like the one here, or more often may be obtained by the agent.
Image retrieved from http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case5.html
The Book Agent's Experience
Horatio Alger, Jr. (actually written by Edward Stratemeyer)
The Young Book Agent, or, Frank Hardy's Road to Success
New York: Stitt Publishing, 1905
The experiences of book agents may be similar to our modern-day telesalespersons. Often they were treated with disdain and irritation, and many were unsuccesful in their careers. In the preface Stratemeyer states that although it's "the custom of many persons in ordinary life to sneer at a book agent and show him scant courtesy,...the agent's business is a perfectly legitimate one and that he is therefore entitled to due respect so long as he does that which is proper and gentlemanly."
Images retrieved from: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case12.html
The Young Book Agent, or, Frank Hardy's Road to Success
New York: Stitt Publishing, 1905
The experiences of book agents may be similar to our modern-day telesalespersons. Often they were treated with disdain and irritation, and many were unsuccesful in their careers. In the preface Stratemeyer states that although it's "the custom of many persons in ordinary life to sneer at a book agent and show him scant courtesy,...the agent's business is a perfectly legitimate one and that he is therefore entitled to due respect so long as he does that which is proper and gentlemanly."
Images retrieved from: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/agents/case12.html