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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Q:

A good introduction, though.

Cerf:

Yes--finding out what do you do with a flop, a big flop like this.

Q:

What did you do about the books they wanted to return? How did you treat this?

Cerf:

Most of the time they had you, because if you wouldn't take them back, they wouldn't pay you for them anyhow.

Q:

They wouldn't buy anything more.

Cerf:

It wasn't on that basis. They wouldn't pay you for these particular books. You'd have to start dunning them. And they'd say, “Well, we want to send these books back. You stuck us with them.” In those days a salesman tried to stick people with as many copies as possible. Today this is ridiculous because they come bouncing back. But then the trick was to oversell. That was what a good book salesman was. If a book seller wanted to take ten copies and you could make him take 25, you were a hero.

Well, the first trip, I was just with Dick Simon watching him, and he was a great salesman. And the way he had gotten people to take extra copies of The Story of the Bible! If they took a hundred copies, he gave them a little thing with two wheels under it, a platform. You know, they could pile





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