[Sidenote: "A Hundred Thousand Copies."]
What is the formula for writing a book which will sell a hundred thousand
copies? Authors consider the question with more or less interest,
publishers meditate upon it more closely still. What sort of works is it
that this interesting experience befalls? Are they literary masterpieces?
Let us see. There was "David Harum;" so much of that as is literature
is chiefly horse stories—excellent horse stories, without "tendency"
or moral purpose. The rest of it that is good is made up of character
sketches in which David Harum is the character. It is the kind of book
of which you say, after it has entertained you and kept you cheerful for
two or three evenings, that it is not much of a book, but has mighty
good things in it, and the following morning you find it necessary to
buy two more copies to send away.
Then there is the "Dooley" book, which has been doing its tens of
thousands; that, too, is a book which has good things in it rather than a
literary masterpiece; and though the good things were better when served
hot in the newspapers, they do not lose all their flavor when dished up
on a cold plate.
There is a book from Kansas called "In His Steps," which is reported
to have sold by the million, both in this country and in Great Britain,
which appeals to readers who are interested in putting the precepts of
the Gospels into practical effect. There is not much literature in that
book either, and in reckoning its readers it is proper to consider that
it has been issued in very cheap form.
That takes us nearly back to "Trilby," which had some literature in
it, some theology, much entertainment, and some structure; and yet as
a book it was rather a happy-go-lucky work than a great novel. But it
sold far more than a hundred thousand. Verily, with these examples in
mind we must feel that the literary race is not to the professionally
swift nor to the professionally literary. For a living example of what
we should consider a legitimate success we have to fall on Mr. Kipling,
who has built up a reputation in prose by good writing, and is able to
gather the fruits of it whenever he puts forth his hand. It may be that
in the matter of poetry he has gathered a fig reputation from a sowing
rich in thistles, but that has been because he has been progressive,
and finding his thistles so readily marketable has been stirred to cause
figs to follow them.
What, then, is our popular book going to be? Shall it be a compilation
of horse stories like "David Harum," a religious story like "In His
Steps," a book like "Dooley," of lively discourse on current events, or
a "Trilby," compounded of charm, mystery, Bohemianism, love, theology,
and music? Alas, there is no formula. One may not choose what he will
write, nor plan before-hand with any certainty to catch his myriad of
readers. The only shafts the author can let fly are those that he finds
in his quiver. He may grow expert in shooting them; he may bring down
more readers with each successive missile, but the arrows themselves
will always be those that he happens to have in stock. All he can do is
to select each one in turn and look to its feathers and its point and
let it drive.
But while there is no sure method of writing a book that will find a
hundred thousand buyers, the fact that nowadays the successful book
may succeed enormously, brings pleasant thrills to the practitioner
of letters. The finding of a big nugget sets the hearts of all the
prospectors a-thump. The miraculous draught agitates all the fishermen
and makes them experience, without sin, the delights of holding a ticket
in a lottery. Let us be thankful, without envy, to the Fortunatuses of
letters. We—most of us—would be glad if we too had the golden touch,
and yet we need not sorrow if we haven't it, for it has its drawbacks,
and once the possession of it is demonstrated, it tends to make its owner
merchant first and writer afterward. His wares are so precious that he is
bound to turn trader; his success is so notorious that he is constrained
to be a public character, and he pays in part for phenomenal good luck
by the loss of a valuable obscurity. Let us be sympathetic with literary
popularity rather than unduly stirred by it. Let us say, "Poor Jones,
his book has sold a hundred thousand and he has gone to Europe. What a
desperate chore it will be to keep that up—if he can keep it up—and
what a bump he will get if he finds that he can't."