Editing Johann Heinrich Zedler (section)

===The company falters===
[[File:Zedler - Reyher und Juncker Latinitatis Theatrum.jpg|thumb|The cover of Zedler's new edition of the dictionary ''Theatrum Latinitatis'' edited by Johann Matthias Gesner.]]

The spring of 1733 was marked by three events that had considerable influence on Zedler's fate as an entrepreneur.
In February Zedler launched a monthly paperback magazine called ''Open Cabinet of Great Men, or the current status of all kingdoms and countries of the world''.
The new journal was aimed at awakening public interest in news from the political, military and court areas.
It was a success, publishing 25 editions up to 1735, but, according to  Zedler's biographer Gerd Quedenbaum, in the long run it was not a remarkable source of revenue.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=132}}
In March 1733, Zedler bought the publishing house of Johann Herbord Kloss, who had died in 1730.
Kloss had a total of 1,014 titles on offer, and in terms of volume was in the first third of the Leipzig booksellers.
However, many of these titles were scarcely marketable.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=132}}
In mid-April, Zedler announced a new publication in a newspaper advertisement, a Latin-Greek-German lexicon by [[Andreas Reyher]] and Christian Juncker, edited by [[Johann Matthias Gesner]].

In March, Zedler had optimistically advertised books from the Johann Herbord Kloss printing house.
By June, he was already preparing a sale of 10,000 bound and unbound books of the acquired inventory, with a high proportion of "junk product".{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=142}}
The sale was arranged as an auction, held on 27 July.
There were growing indications that Zedler was in financial difficulties and had to rely on short-term gains.
On 5 October the Halle bookseller Johann Gottfried Oertel offered a catalog of books from Zedler for the upcoming Leipzig Michaelmas fair at discounts of up to 50%.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=152}}

Zedler used these low prices during the first week of the fair to try to obtain cash.
The main problem was the completion of the eleventh and last volume of the Lutheran writings, whose appearance was announced at the same Michaelmas Fair of 1733. This was the end of a solid source of income. Moreover, until now the costs of the last volume had been met by Praenumeration advances on the next volume. Now the bills had to be settled.

In December 1733, Zedler introduced news on the ''Current State of War'' in his ''Cabinet'' magazine, increasing sales. But a few months later he faced competition from the Leipzig publisher [[Moritz Georg Weidmann]] with a competing magazine on news of the European states.
Just before the start of the Easter Fair of 1734, Zedler again tried to run down his inventory by low offers. At the end of 1734 he ran ads for a magazine project called ''News worth reading for the city and the new University of Göttingen'', but it probably was never published.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=168}}