qualities of a MS. rather than with the writer's private affairs. He is
running a business concern with a view to some margin of profit.
Presumably he has a wife and family to support, rent, rates and taxes to
meet (in addition to helping to pay for the war)--like any other man.
And he spends his days in the dim, fusty airlessness of a publisher's
office for the purpose of making a living out of the books he publishes.
Therefore, he is not likely to be inclined to bring out a book, which
his business experience tells him the public will never buy, merely
because (as one sender of a MS. recently put it) "the moral of my essays
is really beautiful, and it will do people good to read them, if even
they do not bring in profit. Read them yourself and you will see that I
am not exaggerating."
Possibly the moral of a MS. is quite good: but it may not be the
particular brand of goodness that the public is willing to purchase at
the moment; and the publisher knows it is hopeless to put it on the
market in that case.
Equally it is useless to expect him to be influenced favourably simply
because your earnings are ear-marked for charity. At the end of the
year, should he see that the money he paid for a certain item was a dead
loss, it would be no consolation to him to remember that the author had
devoted the cash to a "Seaside Holiday Home for Men on Strike" in which
she was interested.
Therefore spare him all such data. The less you add to what he has to
read daily, the better. An accompanying letter is really
unnecessary--only it is useful to affix the stamps to, for the return of
the MS. if rejected.
Profuse explanations are all beside the mark, and give an amateurish,
unbusiness-like look to a communication. Whatever you may write about
yourself on your MS., in praise thereof, or in extenuation, everything
resolves itself down--in the publisher's mind--to the one simple
question: Is this what the public wants?
[Sidenote: We think we can Judge the Value of our Work better than a
Publisher can]
Many a beginner is convinced his MS. would sell, if only it were
printed. It is natural that we have a certain amount of belief in our
own work, more especially if we have given much time and thought to it.
Moreover, _we_ possibly see points in it that no one else can; _we_ see
what a we meant to put down, without in any way realising how far our
actual writing falls short of the ideas that were in our brain. The
outcome of this partiality for our own writing, is a certainty that
people are not able to do us justice if they do not think as highly of
it as we do.
But the publisher is better able to judge of the selling possibilities
of a work than the author; it is his business; he is at it all day long.
He has no personal feelings involved, his main concern being to make a
book a profitable concern; and his experience teaches him pretty
accurately what the public will buy and what it will leave on his
hands. He may occasionally make a mistake (though it is surprising how
seldom an expert publisher does make a wrong estimate, considering how
various are the MSS. that pass through his office); but when he does, he
more often errs on the side of being over-sanguine, and giving the
author the benefit of the doubt, than in the direction of turning down
anything that might have made his, and the author's, fortune.
[Sidenote: A Consoling Thought--no doubt]
Some writers are convinced that the style of their MS. was too good for
the editor who rejected it, and altogether above his intelligence. This
is a consoling thought, no doubt; but unfortunately it does not take one
any further.
I know that instances are occasionally quoted (always the same
instances, by the way), where books that ultimately achieved some
success were declined by several publishers before they were finally
landed. But in some of these cases the books in question were so very
much off the beaten track as to be verging on freakishness--and no one
living can guarantee a forecast of how the public will receive a freak!
Here and there one finds a publisher who enjoys a gamble, and will risk
a little on such uncertainties; (sometimes he gets his reward, more
often he doesn't); but the majority prefer a safer, even though less
exciting, course!
One other matter may have contributed to the refusals these MSS. met
with--possibly they were offered to publishers who did not handle that
particular type of work. Publishers usually specialise in fixed
directions, just as magazine editors do. No one attempts to cover the
whole range of reading; a glance at any publisher's catalogue will show
this. A MS. turned down by one, as being useless to the section of the
public in which he is interested, may be taken by another, who reaches a
totally different class of reader.
Therefore do not despair, if your story does not get accepted the first
time of asking. There may be a variety of reasons why that particular
publisher or editor did not want that particular MS.
But in any case, don't sit down at the first rebuff and say, "What's the
good of anything? A genius has no chance nowadays any more than poor
Chatterton had!" (By the way, I have heard several desperate, would-be
authors mention Chatterton and liken their own predicament to his, but
not one has ever chanced to be able to quote me a line of his work!)
There is no need to feel that the bottom has dropped out of the
universe, because your MS. has been returned. Try elsewhere.
If it is declined by five or six different publishers, then you may
safely conclude that it is not the kind of work the public will buy at
the moment; or it may be that your writing is not sufficiently mature.
In that case, put that MS. aside, and tackle another, something quite
fresh. I never think it is worth while to try and re-write or
re-construct the rejected MS.--at any rate, not till you are tolerably
advanced. It really takes no more time to write something entirely new.
"If only I could get an introduction to an editor, I am sure I could get
my work taken." One often hears this said. Yet there never was a greater
delusion than this idea that introductions work the oracle. It would be
a different matter if an editor, or publisher, had a surfeit of good
work, and really did not know what to discard: in such circumstances
(which won't occur this side of the millennium!) an introduction might
help to secure attention for an individual writer.
But as it is, the editor is only too anxious to purchase good work when
it comes his way; he does not wait for any introduction. If a MS. strays
into his office that possesses the qualities he is looking for, he
writes the author forthwith, his one desire being to purchase the MS.
Still, if you really feel you must be armed with some such document, it
is as well to be quite sure that the introduction is a desirable one.
Here are two letters that reached me by the same post.
The first was from Miss Blank, a stranger, who said--
"My friend Mr. Dash, who thinks _very_ highly of my work, has _urged_
me to let you see some of it, as he thinks it is just the sort of
thing you will be glad to have for your magazine. He is writing a
letter of introduction. I shall be glad if you will name a time for a
personal interview, as I can better explain"--etc.
The second was from Mr. Dash, an acquaintance of long standing, who
said--
"There is a certain Miss Blank who is anxious I should write her a
letter of introduction to yourself--which I do herewith. I know
nothing whatever about her, save that she seems to be a first-class
nuisance. I have never seen her, haven't a ghost of a notion if she
can write: probably she can't. But she happens to be the sister of the
fiance of the daughter of my mother-in-law's dearest and oldest
friend; and any man who values the peace and happiness of his home
endeavours to propitiate his mother-in-law, especially when she has
mentioned the matter six times already. Therefore I trust this
introduction is in order."
[Sidenote: Personal Interviews are seldom desirable as a Preliminary]
The desirability of a personal interview with an editor is another
delusion to which the amateur clings. As a rule nothing is gained (but a
good deal of time is lost) by talking a contribution over before the
preliminary MS. is read. After all, the MS. is the item by which the
author stands or falls. If it is good, and what the editor wants, he
will take it--and take it only too gladly; if it is not good, or not
what he wants, no amount of preliminary conversation will secure its
acceptance; for no matter how delightful the conversation may have been,
he does not print that; it is the MS. itself that decides the crucial
question of publication or no publication.
In some cases a preliminary letter is desirable: it may be advisable to
ascertain beforehand whether an editor is open to consider an article on
a doubtful subject. But if you wish to avoid inducing a sense of
irritation in his soul, do not ask for a personal interview, since in
all probability, if he is as rushed as most editors are nowadays, he
will turn down the matter forthwith, rather than spend time on talk that
may lead nowhere.
It must always be borne in mind that these are overworked, understaffed,
hustling times in a very complex age; and the newspaper and magazine
office feels this more keenly than any other branch of the business
world, simply because periodicals must reflect the spirit of their day
and generation, and keep the readers in touch with all that is going
on,--and "all" is a large, and constantly changing, order at present.
This means that the editorial offices are always more or less in a state
of tension; there is no time to spare for interviews that may prove
fruitless; the day is seldom long enough to get in all that is certain
to be profitable to the paper.
Therefore, say what you have to say by letter--and say it clearly and
briefly. The editor forms his judgment by what you say, and if he wants
to talk the matter over with you, he will soon let you know.
"But I always feel I can explain myself so much better in a
conversation--no matter how brief--than in a letter." This is a frequent
plea.
The public, however, will judge you by what you write, not by what you
say; if you cannot express yourself well in writing, you may speak with
the tongues of men and of angels yet it will avail you nothing where the
publication of your MS. is concerned. If you cannot write about it so
that the editor can understand, the public are not likely to be able to
comprehend it any better.
Women are particularly prone to ask for an interview, and this because
they instinctively rely to some extent on the appeal of their
personality in most of their business transactions. By far the wiser
course, however, is for a woman to express herself so well in her
writing that the office simply tumbles over itself in its anxiety to
make her personal acquaintance. And I have known this to happen on more
than one occasion.
[Sidenote: The Irrepressible Caller]
Nevertheless, men can also distinguish themselves when making calls. The
card of a stranger, bearing a Nebraska address, was brought to me one
afternoon. He urged that his business was of great importance. Finally I
saw him. He was a most intelligent-looking American, and, like the
majority of his countrymen, was not long in coming to the point. He said
he had written some poems, and promptly placed before me a sheaf of MS.
I told him I would look at them if he would leave them.
"Just you run your eye down these," he said. I protested that I could
not possibly do his work justice if I skimmed it in any such manner.
Then he explained that these were not poems--the masterpieces would
come later--these were press notices of some poems he had had printed in
a Nebraska paper. I read a few; I had never even heard of the majority
of the papers that reviewed his work; but he seemed to take himself very
seriously, one had not the heart to shatter his illusions.
Then he produced the bales of poems. He watched me so eagerly I was
obliged to read some. I besought him to leave the rest with me, as I
could not decide so important a matter hurriedly.
"Oh, but just read this one," he persisted. "Mr. Blank of our
city--never heard of him? You _do_ surprise me!--he says he considers it
as fine as anything your Percy B. Shelley ever wrote." In a moment of
abject weakness I said the poem was fair. Then the heart of that man
warmed towards me; he told me of his hopes, his plans and his
aspirations, and I tried to sympathise with them. I could not do less,
since I owe America much for kindness and hospitality it has shown me on
many occasions.
When at last he rose, reluctantly (he had stayed an hour and a quarter),
I offered him my hand. He took it with a hearty grip.
"Well, I'm real glad to have known you," he said. "It's been a genuine
pleasure to have this talk with you, for you are, without exception,
the most informed and intellectual person I've met since I've been in
your country." I felt immediately remorseful that I had grudged him the
little chat; he was evidently a discerning young man.
"The pleasure has been mine," I assured him, and inquired how long he
had been in England? "I landed at Southampton at ten o'clock this
morning," was the response. I smilingly tried to disguise the sudden
lapse of my enthusiasm. I must have succeeded, for he next said:
"And now I guess I'll go down and fetch up my wife. She's been waiting
in the street outside while I came up to see what you were like. I size
it she'll just enjoy making a little visit with you."
[Sidenote: MSS. cannot always be Read as Soon as they are Received]
It is only natural that an author should be keen to know the verdict on
his work, once he has sent it out to try its fortune. But it is useless
to get impatient because no news of it is forthcoming next day.
Sometimes weeks elapse, sometimes months, before a MS. can be read. But
since the publisher makes no charge for reading a MS. (and the reading
costs money: some one's time has to be paid for, and it is some one who
draws a fair salary, too), he must be allowed to do it at his own
convenience. If he has not asked you to send a MS., you cannot exactly
dictate how soon it should be read.
Naturally, it is read as quickly as possible; this is to every one's
interest; but this does not mean that it can be read the next day, or
even the next week. Other authors may have preceded you.
The amateur who sends letters of inquiry before one has scarcely had
time to open the envelope, is doomed to have his work rejected. No
office has time to write and explain that "the matter will be considered
in due course," etc., so the MS. is merely returned.
It seems impossible to make the average beginner understand that his is
not the only story offered, and that things have to take their turn.
Moreover, it is as difficult to please everybody as it was for the old
man with the donkey in the fable. If MSS. are not returned immediately,
the editor is bombarded with complaints from one set of aggrieved
authors; if he is able to read them at once, and he returns them
quickly, he is the recipient of uncharitable letters accusing him of
having discarded the MSS. unread.
There is an interesting story of a suspicious lady who prided herself on
laying traps for the negligent editor--pages put in the wrong order,
others upside down, and suchlike devices with which every magazine
office is familiar. At last she succeeded in proving that the monster
who sat at the receipt of MSS. in one particular publishing house was a
consummate rascal.
"SIR," she wrote, "I have long suspected that you basely deceive the
public into believing that you read their works, while in reality you
return them unread. But at last I have caught you hot-handed in the
very act. It will doubtless interest you to know that I purposely
gummed together pages 96 and 97, very slightly, in the top right-hand
corner. Had you fulfilled your duty and done the work for which your
employer pays you a salary, you would have discovered this and
detached the pages in question."
The editor replied:
"DEAR MADAM,--If you will take a sharp pen-knife, and remove the
fragment of gum between pages 96 and 97, in the top right-hand
corner, it may interest you to discover my initials underneath."
"Should all MSS. be typed?" is a question often asked.
[Sidenote: If you wish your MS. to be Read: make the Reading Easy]
It is advisable to have them typed if possible, as this enables them to
be read more quickly than if sent untyped. Remember that your object in
sending a MS. to a publisher, or editor, is to get it read: therefore
it is policy to do all in your power to facilitate the reading.
Owing to the widespread interest in literature, and the universal desire
to see oneself in print, the number of MSS. that reach the office of any
general periodical of good standing, is immense; and the eye-strain
entailed in reading is very great. It has therefore become necessary to
ask for MSS. to be typed when possible; though anything that was clearly
written, in a bold readable hand, would never be turned down because it
was not typed. What is desired is that a MS. shall be legible, so that
it can be read with the least amount of detriment to the eyesight.
Whereas some of the untyped work that is sent is a positive insult. I
have seen tiny, niggling writing, crossed out and re-crossed out, till
even the compositor (who is a perfect genius for reading the utterly
illegible) could scarcely have made it out. And in all probability, such
a MS. would be not over-clean, and would be _rolled_ to go through the
post.
[Sidenote: Why Editors do not Criticise]
"If you are unable to make use of my MS., I shall be glad if you will
kindly criticise it, and tell me exactly what you think of it."
This request is frequently made by senders of MS. And when they receive
back their work without any comment they will write and say, "At least
you might have sent one word by way of criticism. If you had only
written 'good' or 'bad,' I should have some idea why you declined it."
I sympathise heartily with those who want advice; I know how very
difficult it is to get any guidance or criticism that can be relied upon
to be disinterested. Nevertheless, I wish the student could see the
number of queries, and the amount of work, and the heap of MSS. that
arrive at the office of any prosperous periodical; he would then begin
to realise how utterly impossible it would be for MSS. to be criticised
in writing. It would entail an extra staff, and an expensive staff at
that, since such criticism is not work, like card indexing, that can be
relegated to a junior clerk. Indeed, the sender of the MS. would
probably be highly indignant if any one but the editor did this work!
When I explain to beginners that we have no time to write criticisms on
rejected work they say, "But it wouldn't take a _minute_ to write down a
few words, seeing that the MS. has already been read."
Unfortunately, it would take a great many minutes. In any case it takes
some time (if only a little) to sum up concisely the merits and defects
of anything. More than that, experience has proved again and again that
one little word of criticism will lead to more letters from the writer.
And one has not time to read them! The children of our brain are very
dear to us; and so sure as any one passes an adverse criticism on them,
our feathers stand on end, and we prepare to defend our one little chick
like the most devoted hen that ever lived.
Neither is it wise, I have found, to suggest a little alteration with a
promise of publication attached. Two years ago I wrote to some one who
had only had one short story published, indicating a new ending that
would have improved her MS. immensely, and made it possible for me to
take it.
"My temperament requires that it shall end as I have written it. Kindly
return my MS. if you cannot use it," replied the lady loftily.
I did so.
Last week the same MS. came back to me--much aged and the worse for
wear--with a note that the author did not mind if I altered the ending
as I had suggested. But two years is two years. And in the interval,
while the MS. was travelling round to every other office, the
subject-matter had got out of date.
It is never politic to be touchy if by chance some misguided editor
does offer a word of criticism!
If you want your work published, and there is no loss of principle
involved, conform to the publisher's requirements as gracefully as you
can, even though, in your heart of hearts, you consider him woefully
lacking in discernment.
And you can comfort yourself, meanwhile, with the thought that when you
are safely ensconced upon Olympian heights, you will even things up a
little, and get back all of your own. I know one proprietress of several
rejected MSS. who vows that whenever she "gets there," she will sit on
the topmost pinnacle, and make all publishers and editors (including
myself) walk up to her on their knees, dropping curtsies all the way!
[Sidenote: A Popular Delusion]
I was making for my office one day when a sportive-looking girl stopped
me on the stairs. "Just give this story to the editor will you, please?"
she began. "Give it right into her hands, won't you; don't let any
underling get hold of it."
I agreed.
"And--I say--just tell her from me that she's to read it _herself_,
every word of it; I won't be put off with some assistant tossing it
aside half read. I know their tricks."
One very popular delusion is that there is a conspiracy among the
assistants in an office to keep MSS., and especially good MSS., from the
eye of the chief! People will resort to all sorts of devices with the
idea of ensuring MSS. reaching the editor's own hands. They are marked
"personal," and "strictly private," or "please forward, if away"; and I
had one endorsed, "Not to be opened by any one but the Editor."
Yet what is gained by all this, save a definite amount of delay? In any
well-organised office, work has to follow a certain routine; MSS. have
to be entered up by clerks as received, the stamps sent for return
postage have to be checked and duly noted by the proper department, etc.
Why delay the handling of the MS. for a few weeks by having it so
addressed that it may follow the editor to the North Pole, and back,
before it is opened, if the endorsements were obeyed?--which of course
they are not.
Let a MS. take its proper course. No one in the office desires to
suppress genius; on the contrary, great indeed is the elation of any
member of the staff who discovers something worth publishing. It is one
great object of our business lives.
[Sidenote: A Little Tact and how much it is!]
If you feel you must call at an office in person, remember that the
display of a little tact is a desirable accomplishment. When seeking a
post on his paper do not start by telling the editor that his magazine
is poor stuff, and will soon be on the rocks,--as I once heard a lady
tell the editor of one of the most famous monthlies in existence. When
he inquired as to her experience, it transpired that she had had one
story--and one only--printed, and it had appeared in a child's magazine.
And it was another tactful caller who said, on leaving, after having
absorbed five and twenty minutes of a busy assistant's time: "Well,
perhaps you'll explain these suggestions of mine to the editor; though
it would have been so much more satisfactory if I could have talked to
some properly qualified individual."
Occasionally, however, a caller contributes something to the gaiety of
nations, as in the case of the lady who came to inquire after the
welfare of a MS. she had left with some one in our building only the day
before. (And, incidentally, she wanted to alter a word in it, as she had
thought of one she liked better).
I was passing through the Inquiry Office as she entered, and she
straightway explained to me her mission.
"I will find out who took it," I said, "I do not think you left it with
me."
"Oh no! it wasn't you," she replied emphatically. "I left it with quite
a nice-looking person!"
The Responsibility
The responsibility attached to the business of writing is greater than
in any other department of work. The influence of the printed page is so
far reaching, that no writer can gauge to what extent he may be
furthering good (or harm), when he puts pen to paper.
You can calculate exactly an author's cash value by his sales: but this
does not give an equally accurate estimate of his moral value.