Fifty years, one way or the other, would have made a vast difference in the reception, the import, the influence of even so epochal a book as _The Origin of Species_. Now a little reflection will show that, in the case of lesser books, the matter of time is far more sharply important. Darwin’s book was so massive that ten or twenty years either way might not have mattered. But in such a case as John Spargo’s _Bolshevism_ a few months may matter. In the case of _Mr. Britling_ the month as well as the year mattered vitally. Time is everything, in the fate of many a book, even as in the fate of a magazine article, a poem, an essay, a short story. Arthur Guy Empey was on the very hour with _Over the Top_; but the appearance of his _Tales from a Dugout_ a few days after the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, was one of the minor tragedies of the war. Therefore the publisher who can, as nearly as human and mechanical conditions permit, preserve flexibility in his publishing plans, has a very great advantage over inelastic competitors. That iron-clad arrangements at half year ahead can be avoided the methods of two of the most important American houses demonstrate. Either can get out a book on a month’s notice. More than once in a season this spells the difference between a sale of 5,000 and one of 15,000 copies--that is, between not much more than “breaking even” and making a handsome profit. 8 Every book that is published requires advertising though perhaps no two books call for advertising in just the same way. One of the best American publishing houses figures certain sums for advertising--whatever form it may take--in its costs of manufacture and then the individual volumes have to take each their chances of getting, each, its proper share of the money. Other houses have similar unsatisfactory devices for providing an advertising fund. The result is too often not unlike the revolving fund with which American railways were furnished by Congress--it revolved so fast that there wasn’t enough to go round long. A very big publishing house does differently. To the cost of manufacture of each book is added a specific, flat and appropriate sum of money to advertise that particular book. The price of the book is fixed accordingly. When the book is published there is a definite sum ready to advertise it. No book goes unadvertised. If the book “catches on” there is no trouble, naturally, about more advertising money; if it does not sell the advertising of it stops when the money set aside has been exhausted and the publishers take their loss with a clear conscience; they have done their duty by the book. It may be added that this policy has always paid. Combined with other distinctive methods it has put the house which adopted it in the front rank. 9