Creating Shelf Appeal

 

I think many visitors to book sellers walk the aises and run their fingers over the covers before majking a selection.  Before Internet search engines, this was the accepted means of reachi9ng prospective customers.  When I worked at the parent company of Funk & Wagnalls, I learned that about 10 percent of the public visited book sellers.  But 100 percent shopped at supermarkets for food, which is why F&W sold its encyclopedia at supermarkets.

Platt & Munk, publishers of Holling’s 1936 book Cowboys, may have attempted similar “shelf attraction” by changing the cover of Cowboys at least three times!  It's not known whether the cover art was created by Holling or the advertising department.

Our able researcher. Joan Hoffman, discovered this curiosity.  She notes, “A visitor brought to the Museum a copy of Holling's Coyboys  to add to our collection.  It had a book jacket that was different from what we had.  The hard cover beneath the jacket is the same.  It looks like we have three different Cowboys books.  

It is similar situation as with the three Holling Indians books.”  Sure ‘nuff, this is what the Indians covers look like from 1935.

 

 

    

 

 

(Readers: Please excuse this horrible layout and formatting.  Google is unforgiving in terms of layout!)