McGraw-Hitt Book Company-INc.

o Dr. Forrest C. Allen = , pate 12/1/38

has been as heavy, if not heavier than ever before.
Over two million pieces of mail order promotion have
gone out this fall and the results have been very
discouraging as opposed to good results in other
falls.

I have said all the above for there are
times when books do not sell whether they have the
competition of other books or not.: Present day
times, too, are not comparable to conditions when
you published the "Basketball Bible". There is,
of course, more interest in basketball than ever
before but at the time you published the "Basketball
Bible", I am not sure that the competition or the
conditions are at all compsrable with today.

You, of course, being 42 great enthusiast

and very close to the field, see as you move around

where sales could be made here or there. To solicit

personally is, of course, impossible on any commercial
_ basis and it seems to me that the promotion efforts we

have made, which include much advertising and many

thousands of circulars, really shows we are giving

the book every chance.

We are sorry you are disappointed in the
sale but in times such as the present, we consider
them quite good. For the first three weeks in
November, almost 200 more copies have been sold so
that the total for the first year to date is approxi-
mately 5,000. The sales for the next three months we
hope will continue at the same or better rate. What
your first year sales of the "Basketball Bible" were
I do not know, but everything considered, it is a
good record and I would challenge anyone to do
better today. We naturally want our authors satisfied
but we cannot do the impossible.

Sincerely yours,