LA Bantam - How to Win and Hold a Husband

The 11th book published by Bantam Publications is How to Win and Hold a Husband by Lucille Martin, a pseudonym for Eleanor Packer. See here for more on Packer. This is a paperback original.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books How to Win and Hold a Husband is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
[2] copyright page,
[3] CONTENTS,
[4] blank,
5-6 INTRODUCTION,
[7] half-title page,
[8] blank,
9-99 HOW TO WIN AND HOLD A HUSBAND,
[100] advertisement.

The copyright date is 1940. The back cover has an advertisement for Bantam Books. The advertisement on page 100 lists books 1-4 and 6-12.

The strong yellowish green/vivid yellow cover below is the only one I've seen. In common with other Bantam books there may be variant covers.

LA Bantam - Humorous Anecdotes and Funny Stories

The 24th book published by Bantam Publications is Humorous Anecdotes and Funny Stories compiled and retold by Eleanor Packer. This is a paperback original.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books Humorous Anecdotes and Funny Stories is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
2-100 Humorous Anecdotes and Funny Stories.

The copyright date, 1940, is on the title page. The back cover of the text variant lists 12 of the books from 1, The Spanish Cape Murder to 28, Strangers in Flight. The illustrated version lists books 21 through 28, excluding 24.

In common with most LA Bantams there are variant covers. The strong yellowish green/light blue text and illustrated variants are shown below. There is also a strong yellowish green/light orange yellow version.

Text variant back

Illustrated variant back

LA Bantam - Colour Description Part II

Part I described the ISCC-NBS Colour Description Method. Here we'll look at some of the other colours used on the books published by Bantam Publications of Los Angeles. There is an obvious difficulty with these designations because I'm using the colours on a web site which reflect the calibration of my computer. But this is not meant to be a rigorous effort.

The first book is The Lone Ranger. The green is a strong yellowish green (131) as was the green in part I. This web site does not have samples for the grays but it is likely light (264) or medium gray (265).

The next book is Little Known Facts About Well Known People. The two colours are vivid yellow (82) and strong blue (178).

Favorite Poems has the strong yellowish green (131) plus light blue (181).

LA Bantam - Why 10 cents? Part II

Part I introduced the mystery of how Bantam Publications made a profit selling its books for 10 cents at a time when other mass market paperbacks sold for 25 cents. Here I'll look more closely at the economics of early paperbacks. A quote from page 369 of A History of Book Publishing in the US Volume IV: The Great Change, 1940 - 1980 (New York: Bowker, 1981) by John Tebbel provides the background:

"Pocket Books, along with everyone else, had to struggle against rising wartime costs, but for paperback reprinters it was an even more serious matter. Out of each quarter paid for books, 7 cents went to the retailer (9.5 cents if the buyer bought in quantities), another penny went to the author and the original publisher, while 10.5 cents went for production. That left 4 to 6 1/4 cents for selling, shipping and overhead. Because it cost 15 percent more to manufacture a Pocket Book at the end of 1941 than it had at the beginning ... shrewed manoeuvring was required to stay in business on the original twenty-five cent basis."

The period discussed by Tebbel is exactly when Bantam was publishing - 1940 and '41. Notice the range for costs is 22.5 to 27.25 cents. Even assuming that an entire print run sold profit was likely in the 1/2 cent to 1 cent range.

Pocket Books published in the 100,000s and its manufacturing costs were 10.5 cents. Bantam's print runs had to be less, yet the unit cost had to somehow be much less than 10.5 cents to be profitable. Also 7 to 9.5 cents to a retailer wouldn't have been supported by a 10 cent price and the other costs had to be much less than 5 to 7 1/4 cents.

However it was done one has to assume that Bantam expected to make a profit but it is hard to imagine any more than a penny per book. Given the scarcity of the books today print runs were likely in the 20,000 range. So, assuming once again the entire print run sold, profit per book would have been at best $200. At 29 books this works out to some $6,000 total profit. Even in 1940 this would not have justified starting the business.

I'll end with a Pocket and a Bantam book.

Pocket 97 - 1941

Pocket 97 back

LA Bantam 26

LA Bantam 26 back

LA Bantam - Book Vending Machines Part V

In this post I'll briefly look at the fourth of the five mid-century American book vending machines. O. J. Jennings & Company of Chicago introduced the Automatic Library in September 1939 to sell Little Blue Books, published from 1919 until 1951 by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius of Girard, Kansas. Only a few (22 have been identified - see here) of the 2100 Little Blue Book titles were sold through the machines. They were marked as “Published for Automatic Libraries”.

The December 11, 1939 issue of Newsweek has a picture of the Automatic Library and a brief article which says that the “test machines have been installed in subway and bus stations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, each machine containing eighteen titles at a dime apiece.”

Newsweek December 11, 1939, page 52

LA Bantam - Book Vending Machines Part IV

Here is the third machine in our survey of mid-century book vending machines.

International Mutoscope Corporation of Long Island, NY developed a machine for Avon Publishing Company called Vend-Avon. It was installed in Idlewild and La Gaurdia airports in the summer of 1950. The machine had a capacity of 350 to 650 books, depending on volume thickness, stood about 6 ½ feet high and occupied 3 by 1 ½ feet of floor space.

There is a short article in the August 5, 1950 Publisher’s Weekly about the Vendavon [sic]. In common with the other machines of the era Vend-Avon lasted a very short time.

Publisher's Weekly August 5, 1950, page 574

LA Bantam - Colour Description - ISCC-NBS Method

Whether as part of a formal bibliographic description or in a dealer's catalogue adequately describing a book's colours is always a challenge. The obvious problem with a written description is that the words are likely to be interpreted differently by everyone reading the description. The Internet combined with simple scanning and printing technology has made the job potentially easier but hasn't solved the problem completely. Different scanners, printers and screens will reproduce colours differently.

The solution is to use a standard vocabulary of colours that is understandable and accessible. There is one that has been recommended - the Inter-Society Color Council-National Bureau of Standards (ISCC-NBS) method. This method divides colours into ranges designated by 28 hue names - red, orange, violet etc. The hue names are then modified indicating variation in lightness (value) or saturation (chroma). The result is 267 colour blocks. These can be further subdivided up to 5 million colours. Here is a useful site that provides examples of the blocks and a more detailed description of the method.

Each block is identified by a name and number so a colour can be easily designated and referenced. I'll use a LA Bantam book to demonstrate. In earlier posts I've described the book below as green/tan but I've seen what I've called tan described as orange and yellow. Using the colour block method the colours become light orange yellow (70) and strong yellowish green (131). The cover was scanned on an HP scanjet 2200c which is nearly ten years old and on my screen both colours do not match exactly with the book. The strong yellowish green is close but the light orange yellow is darker and redder on the screen and the actual colour is not well reproduced. Reference to the colour block would eliminate confusion as to the correct colours. 

LA Bantam - Book Vending Machines Part III

Before continuing to look at the question of LA Bantam and book vending I'll briefly discuss the mid century book vending machines that did exist. The first was the "Book-o-Mat".

The second was developed by Dadson Industries, Inc. Dadson's vender (name the industry uses for vending machines) was first used in a NY subway in December 1946 to sell paperbacks published by New York's Pocket Books. In January 1947 a Billboard article quotes a Pocket Book executive as saying Dadson has no right to sell the books. He goes on to say only Automatic with their Book-o-Mat is under contract to sell Pocket Books. There is a picture in the May 1947 Popular Mechanics of a machine which is not named but meets the description of the Dadson.

Popular Mechanics May 1947, page 90