Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1896 — POTENT LITERARY FACTOR. [ARTICLE]

POTENT LITERARY FACTOR.

Excellence of American Magazines Made Possible by Advertisements. Edward W. Bok editorially discusses advertisements as "A Potent Literary Factor” in* the Ladies’ Home Journal. He maintains that the advertisements of to-day are made so attractive that a magazine would lose much of its charm, beside a great part of its value and interest, were they to be omitted. “The advertisement, too,” Mr. Bok contends, “has become a literary factor. Without the rapid growth of the art of advertising, and the substantia) growth of income which such progress means, our magazines could not possibly be made what they are to-day. The advertisement has made the modern magazine, in point of literary and artistic excellence, possible. It has become a distinct literary factor, and as potent and all-powerful a factor as ever entered into literary considerations. Which of our magazines published in these days, for example, could continue to give its table of contents if all advertisements were withheld from Its pages? Not a single one of them, and I except none. The actual cost of the single number of any of our magazines is beyond average public conception. That cost is possible to their owners only and solely because of the income derived from the advertisements. At the low price for which the majority of Out periodicals are sold to-day no profit whatever ensues from that source. ♦ * It is for this reason that every reader of a periodical should approve of, rather than oppose, the advertisement. And the reader’s support of the magazine’s advertisements means a direct return to him. If the reader patronizes the advertisers of the magazine which he reads he necessarily helps to make the advertisements in that periodical profitable, and naturally the advertiser is willing to continue to announce his wares in that particular magazine. This adds to the income of the periodical, and enables the owners of it to enter into larger and better literary and artistic undertakings. Thus, not alone does the reader benefit the advertiser and the magazine, but he indirectly benefits himself. * *”