Installment Culture

Will Moses reach the Promised Land? Will Dante get across the Styx? The Bible and The Divine Comedy are not generally thought of as cliff hangers, but that is just what they have become to millions of Italians. Each week readers rush to the newsstands--which also prominently display dozens of girlie publications--to buy magazine-like booklets that contain installments from a classic or an encyclopedia. The idea of dispensing culture in weekly dollops has brought a fortune to the three Milanese publishers who conceived it.

The Fabbri brothers--Giovanni, 43, Dino, 41, and Rino, 36--started with a small textbook company after World War II. Shrewdly figuring that Italy's growing middle class had both an urge to learn and an eagerness to buy almost anything on the installment plan, the Fabbris decided to turn out books that sell like magazines. Their first offering, a four-volume encyclopedia issued in 48 weekly installments at 350 each, has been translated into 40 languages and has attracted 3,000,000 customers. The Fabbris followed up with serialized encyclopedias of science, sport, fairy tales and the arts, prepared by a staff of 600 writers, artists and specialists.

The Fabbris have branched into other countries and have also begun to publish some volumes whole, but the installment principle remains their biggest asset. Last month they brought out an installment version of an art encyclopedia in Britain, and last week in Italy they introduced a "House and Kitchen" encyclopedia. Though even runaway bestsellers seldom draw as many as 50,000 buyers in Italy, the Fabbris are currently selling 1,000,000 installments a week, including 300,000 copies of The Divine Comedy. Issued at the rate of one canto a week for 100 weeks, the full series will cost $50, at least ten times more than a bookstore edition. But each serialized book is full of illustrations, printed on fine paper from the Fabbris' own mill, and suitable for do-it-yourself binding in leather folders from another Fabbri plant. Quality helps the books to sell, while quantity sales keep the prices from going still higher.

The brothers' success has brought imitators, but none has done as well. The Fabbris' 20 presses roll 24 hours a day, and the brothers are now financing a $20 million expansion plan wholly out of earnings. Profits are high, largely because expenses are so low. The Fabbris have a classic advantage: they seldom pay royalties, and their future range of titles is virtually unlimited.

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