Letter from Leonard Woolf to Norman Leys (19/02/1925)

 

[[1]]

 

[[MS 2750/255/57]]

 

Norman Leys Esq 
Brailsford 
near Derby

 

19 Feb. 1925

 

Dear Leys,

 

When I wrote to you first the sales were actually going up and I was afraid that, if they went up say another 20 per week and we had a long correspondence about reprinting, there might easily be a gap between the first and the second. There are signs now that the sales are slackening. We have now sold 620 copies, and we still have 230 to sell. I now have Clark's estimate for reprinting. It is £58 for 500 copies, £67 for 750, and £72 for 900 respectively. This does not include binding which comes to about £4-10-0 per 100. My feeling is simply this. If the edition sells out and you do not reprint, you will have made a little money out of it at any rate. If when the book has only 100 of the first edition left and is selling about 20 per week, you reprint, it will cost you about £65 (about £72 if you bind up 200) and you will have to sell nearly 200 copies of the second edition before you repay yourself. If it was a probability of selling another 500 copies, I should be all in favour of your speculating, but I should much rather feel that you had made £50 than that you had lost £25.

 

I am certainly not going to take 10% on the copies which you had. We did not have to handle them in any way, and it would be ridiculous for us to take a commission on them.

 

By the bye one ought to leave at least three weeks for reprinting.

 

Yours | Leonard Woolf [signature]

Rights Statement:

Reproduced with permission from Penguin Random House UK Archive and Library owner of the Hogarth Press archive collection, held by the University of Reading Special Collections. With thanks to the Society of Authors This item has not been made available with a CC BY-NC-ND licence. Please see the terms of use page for further information.

Source: MS 2750/255/57

Letter from Leonard Woolf to Norman Leys (19/02/1925)

Author:

Library:

University of Reading, Special Collections

Archival Folder:

Leonard Woolf writes on the subjects of volume of sales and reprinting.

 

Typescript letter signed by Woolf