Mail-order catalog

The pattern

This still is filed under Mail-order catalog.

Define

A catalog that is the store: browse, choose, order, without a clerk and often without a website.

Mechanism

Assortment as argument. Density, numbering, and an order path do the closing. The book is the funnel.

Verdict

We have a range, remote buyers, and a way to take the order on the same object.

Why it works

The column works like a shop window of books: each title is set in its own display lettering, followed by a line on what it covers, its size and its price with postage. A reader can scan from stories to Egyptian civilisation to sociology and pick one without visiting a bookshop. One press address at the foot turns the whole list into a single place to order from.

The big idea

Eight books, each lettered like its own cover with its contents, size and postal price, let a reader anywhere pick one and order it from a single press.

The offer

Modern Stories, 80 stories in 480 pages, for 10 piastres; other titles at 10 to 25 piastres, post 3 in Egypt and 5 abroad; from any bookshop or al-Matba'a al-Asriya, 5 Elwi Street, Cairo.

The proof

Named authors such as Gustave Le Bon, Anatole France and Nicola Haddad, a doctor as author of one title, and the sociology book called the only one on its subject in Arabic.

Lines from the ad

القصص العصرية

Modern Stories

مجموعة تشمل ٨٠ قصة مختلفة المغزى والاسلوب

A collection of 80 stories of different morals and styles

تطلب هذه الكتب القيمة من كل المكاتب أو من المطبعة العصرية

These fine books can be ordered from every bookshop or from al-Matba'a al-Asriya

Steal this when

Use it when you sell a range of titles or items to distant buyers and can let a dense, priced list do the browsing for them.