Continuing the story from part II here are three more weekly newspaper novel supplements from The Philadelphia Inquirer, all from August 1941.
The Inquirer (1829-), as far as I can tell, published the Gold Seal Novels on Sunday from May 1934 to September 1949 with no issues from May 1946 to April 1948 - approximately 700 issues. I have been able to identify 430 of them. During these years Sunday circulation was likely averaging close to a million copies per week, again, based on what I can find on line. This means around 700 million copies of the novels were sold by this one newspaper alone.
What was the impact of this on the publishing world? For example, what were the royalty terms for the publisher/author and what did booksellers think of this competition? I can find no answers to these and other questions.
August 3, 1941 - Sinfully Rich by Hulbert Footner (Harper and Brothers, 1940)
August 17, 1941 - A Face For a Clue by Georges Simenon (Artheme Fayard, 1931 as Le chien jaune)
August 31, 1941 - Mooney Moves Around by Kerry O'Neil (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939)
No comments:
Post a Comment