Adventure Magazine Cover — page 195: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| seemed sorry he had said so much. You will learn why from my story. I HAVE made it look as practica: as possible, but it was a job. Of course I was helped by believing what I wrote about—which you won't. We should prepare for this danger, just as we should have gotten ready for the war with Germany. I know I will be called a crazy fool for the warning, or else what I write will be taken for mere fiction. But if—I could bring home the danger—the danger which lies in the East, in which men will not be- lieve until too late. An unseen weapon, the very existence of which is denied by our scientists, is pointed in our direction. Now, read the tale, and call me an imaginative fool, who has allowed a story to get the best of his common sense. Because, at any rate, we will not live to see the final war—at least, I don’t think we will.—S. B. Hurst. iB IT were any of the other magazines I worked on before Adventure was born I’d not like to ask the readers just _ voluntarily to help push the magazine. It would seem a bad case of nerve. But I haven’t a bit of reluctance in asking Camp- Fire to do just that for Adventure. In fact, I’m sorry I didn’t think to.do it sooner. I don’t mean I’m going to ask anybody to get subscriptions or anything like that. And I don’t mean that Adventure’s circu- lation is going down and we need help to make it pay. It’s not going down. It’s going up. And it’s paying. But naturally we want it to go up still faster and still higher. We want it to pay all it legiti- mately can and I make no bones about pre- senting this matter on that basis. I’m ask- ing a pure favor, not trying tojjolly you into something by painting it up to look like something it isn’t. It happens that you would gain in a minor way by doing what I ask, but not enough to warrant my putting.the matter up to you on that basis at all. I’m asking you to do it because’ it -will increase the magazine’s sales and make it pay better. iS just this. Every little while some of you write in quite voluntarily and tell us Adventure isn’t being carried for sale in such and such a place or that there are not enough copies to supply the demand. Some- times it is a plain kick—the writer of the letter is sore because he couldn’t get the magazine when he wanted it. Sometimes it is merely mentioned incidentally. Some- times as a favor and kindness to us—and very often the writer says something like “though maybe you aren’t interested in such matters” or half-apologizes for speak- ing of it. 3 Believe me, we here in the office are in- terested. That’s exactly the favor I want to ask of all of you who can spare the time and are willing to take the trouble. Ad- venture sells well when it is put where peo- ple can buy it, but that isn’t so easy to do as it seems. I used to think it was a sim- ple matter, but I-had that idea knocked out of me. The proper distributing of a magazine is a difficult and very compli- cated business, The newsdealer, the news company and the publisher all stand to gain by the best distribution that can be attained and all work together to attain it, but even that cooperation can’t ensure it. WE WANT Adventure on every news- stand where there is a demand for it— in the United States, Canada, Australia and everywhere that there are readers of the English language. We don’t want to burden any newsdealer uselessly. Though as Adventure is “fully returnable” he doesn’t lose if any copies remain unsold. But we do want to be sure that every news- dealer has enough copies so that no one will be unable to get an Adventure when he wants it. That is where you come in, if you will. A newsdealer nearly always knows his own business, but, like all the rest of us, some- times he doesn’t seize .on every opportun- ity to make supply fit demand. Also it is by no means always his fault if he hasn’t a magazine when it’s called for; the pub- lisher may be responsible, as in the case of the recent strike, or the big machinery of the news company may have slipped a small cog somewhere, or, most likely of all, trans- portation may not have been what it should. Or he may be sold out on some particular issue of a magazine’ even though he had ordered the number indicated by previous sales. We’re not trying to hang anything on the newsdealer. It’s our business to make satisfactory adjustment with him. But first we must know whether any adjust- ment is needed. And you are the ones who can tell us. We have our own men in the field but there are a good many news- stands in the world, conditions are chang- ing at each one of them and even ten times as many men couldn’t keep track of all the details.