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property, but the Modern Library no longer is a “must” in every bookstore. Today they all still stock it, but it's not the outstanding value that it was once. The paperback has over-shadowed it in economy purposes for anybody who wants a book at the lowest possible price.

Especially in school. You used to read Modern Library books. Even I used to read Modern Library. Now my sister ...what a difference in five or six years...it's all paperback.

That's not true always. We still have a big sale, but it's a losing game.

Well now, when you buy a title for Modern Library...

We can't begin to pay anything like the guarantee the paperbacks offer. Their editions number in the hundreds of thousands; ours average about five thousand.

How do you work that?

Another thing, many publishers are starting their own paperback series, and we've lost many outstanding titles. You see, we have contracts for three or five years; and when a contract expires, we now often cannot get the book back. For instance, Scribner, when they started their own