61

 45

———

305

 244

————

2745

Do you perceive your mistake? What we want to find out is the bare cost of the book, not the cost with Mr. Green’s profit added. Of the 48½ cts, Green has probably allowed himself 5½ for profit—which makes the pure cost of the book 43 cents; which is 10 cents under Bliss, & 20 per cent cheaper than Bliss.

Bliss makes cost, boxing, &c of 64,000 books, $42,0 300.

Let us allow strike off 3,000 books, & call the plates “sunk.” The remaining ◊ 61,000, should cost, for (with boxing, &c)—

Bliss ___ ___ ___61,000

53.

____

183

  305

  ______

$32,330.

Green ___ ___ ___   61,000

  43

  ____

   183

 244

_______

  26,230

---

---

These Am. Pub. people print 6 books for me, now. They sell a total of 10,000 copies a year & get out of them about $7,000 above cost of manufacture. Their whole business pays them, say, $11,000.

Can’t we manage, next fall, to scare them out of my copyrights & plates?

By that time they will have sold 85,000 “T tramps,” possibly, & charged 10 cents too much on all 82,000 of them. Say in the neighborhood of $8,000 too much.

If I had these copyrights, I could make them pay me $25,000 a year, right along. They now pay me less than $3,000.

I would not care to have the “Tramp” by itself. I should want all or none.

Now how the mischief can I get hold of those copyrights?

As to Chicago. I be hanged if I think I would sell it at present. Two or three years hence it will be worth 3 times what we could get for it now; & then, before that, we could open a little agency of our own there, & at Cincinnati & St Louis, & take in work to be done in New York. This would build up a good l big local trade at those points within 2 or 3 years—& then would be the best time to sell. Meantime we would exert ourselves to get the patent renewed. What do you think?