But perhaps the greatest element in predetermining the possible audience for a non-fiction book is its timeliness. Important, often enough, in the case of particular novels, the matter of timeliness is much more so with all other books soever. It cannot be overlooked in autobiography; _The Education of Henry Adams_ attracted a great host of readers in 1918 and 1919 because it became accessible to them in 1918 and not in 1913 or 1929. In 1918 and 1919 the minds of men were peculiarly troubled. Especially about education. H. G. Wells was articulating the disastrous doubts that beset numbers of us, first, in _Joan and Peter_, with its subtitle, _The Story of an Education_, drawing up an indictment which, whatever its bias, distortion and unfairness yet contained a lot of terrible truth; and then, in _The Undying Fire_, dedicated “to all schoolmasters and schoolmistresses and every teacher in the world,” returning to the subject, but this time constructively. Yes, a large number of persons were thinking about education in 1918-19, and the ironical attitude of Henry Adams toward his own was of keenest interest to them. 13 We have discussed the internal factor which makes for a big sale in books rather sketchily because, as a whole, book publishers can tell it when they see it (all that is necessary) even though it may puzzle authors who haven’t mastered it. So far as authors are concerned we believe that this factor can, in many instances, be mastered. The enterprise is not different from developing a retentive memory, or skill over an audience in public speaking; but as with both these achievements no short cut is really possible and advice and suggestion (you can’t honestly call it instruction) can go but a little way. No end of nonsense has been uttered on the subject of what it is in books that makes them sell well, and nonsense will not cease to be uttered about it while men write. What is of vastly more consequence than any effort to exploit the internal factor in best sellers is the failure to make every book published sell its best. If, in general, books sell not more than one-quarter the number of copies they should sell, an estimate to which we adhere, then the immediate and largest gain to publishers, authors and public will be in securing 100 per cent. sales. 14 A word in closing about the familiar argument that the habits of our people have changed, that they no longer have time to read books, that motoring and movies have usurped the place of reading. Intercommunication is not a luxury but a necessity. Transportation is only a means of intercommunication. As the means of intercommunication--books, newspapers, mail services, railroads, aircraft, telephones, automobiles, motion pictures--multiply the use of each and every one increases with one restriction: A new means of intercommunication paralleling but greatly improving an existing means will largely displace it--as railroads have largely superseded canals.