Before we go on to a discussion of the internal factor of the best seller we want to stress once more, and constructively and suggestively, the postnatal attention it should receive. The first year and the second summer are fatal to far too many books as well as humans. And this is true despite the differences between the two. If 100,000 copies represent the 100 per cent. sale of a given volume you may declare that it makes no difference whether that sale is attained in six months or six years. From the business standpoint of a quick turnover six months is a dozen times better, you may argue; and if interest on invested money be thought of as compounding, the apparent difference in favor of the six-months’ sale is still more striking. This would perhaps be true if the author’s next book could invariably be ready at the end of the six-months’ period. Other ifs will occur to those with some knowledge of the publishing business and a moderate capacity for reflection. Most books are wrongly advertised and inadequately advertised, and rather frequently advertised in the wrong places. Of the current methods of advertising new fiction only one is unexceptionably good. This is the advertising which arrests the reader’s attention and baits his interest by a few vivid sentences outlining the crisis of the story, the dilemma that confronts the hero or heroine, the problem of whether the hero or heroine acted rightly; or paints in a few swift strokes some exciting episode of the action--ending with a question that will stick in the reader’s mind. Such an advertisement should always have a drawing or other illustration if possible. It should be displayed in a generous space and should be placed broadcast but with much discrimination as to where it is to appear. A kind of advertisement somewhat allied to this, but not in use at all despite its assured selling power would consist of the simple reproduction of a photographed page of the book. The Detroit _News_ has used such reproduced pages so effectively as illustrations that it seems strange no publisher (so far as we know) has followed suit. Striking pages, and pages containing not merely objective thrill but the flavor which makes the fascination of a particular book, can be found in most novels. The Detroit _News_ selected a page of the highest effectiveness from so subtle a romance as Joseph Conrad’s _The Arrow of Gold_. This manner of advertising, telling from its complete restraint, is applicable to non-fiction. A page of a book of essays by Samuel Crothers would have to be poorly taken not to disclose, in its several hundred words, the charm and fun of his observations. Publishers of encyclopædias have long employed this “page-from-the-book” method of advertisement with the best results.