SOMETHING TO SELL
Six months back home, toiling like a galley slave, furnished requisite
funds for another fling at New York. If ever a writer _burned_ with
zeal, this one did. Mississippi Valley summers often approach the
torrid; this one was a record breaker; and I never shall forget how
often that summer, after a hard day's work as a reporter, I stripped to
the waist like a stoker and scribbled and typed until my eyes and
fingers ached.
It was wise--and foolish. Wise, because it furnished the capital with
which every free lance ought to be well supplied before he attempts to
operate from a New York headquarters. Foolish, because it took all joy
of life out of my manuscripts while the session of strenuousness lasted
and left me wavering at the end almost on the verge of a physical
breakdown. Nights, Sundays and holidays I plugged and slogged, nor did I
relent even when vacation time came round. I sojourned to the Michigan
pine woods, but took along my typewriter and kept it singing half of
every day.
The new year found me in New York again, alone this time and installed
in a comfortable two-room suite instead of an attic. A reassuring bank
account bolstered up my courage while the work was getting under way.
This time I made a go of it; and such ups and downs as have followed in
the ten years succeeding have not been much more dramatic than the mild
adventures that befall the everyday business man. "Danger is past and
now troubles begin." That phrase of Gambetta's aptly describes the
situation of the average free lance when, after the first desperate
struggles, he has managed to gain a reasonable assurance of
independence.
Confidence comes with experience, and when you no longer have any grave
fears about your ability to make a living at the trade, your mind turns
from elementary problems to the less distracting task of finding out how
to make your discovered degree of talent count for all that it may be
worth. After trying your hand at a variety of subjects, you will find
your forte. But take your time about it. Every adventure in composition
teaches you something new about yourself, your art and the markets
wherein you gain your daily bread. The way to learn to write--the only
way--is by writing, and you never will know what you might do unless you
dare and try.
Both as a matter of expediency and of getting as much fun out of the
work as possible, it is well in the beginning to be versatile.
Eventually, the free lance faces two choices: He may become a specialist
and put in the remainder of his life writing solely about railroads, or
about finance, or about the drama. Or he may, as Robert Louis Stevenson
did, turn his hand as the mood moves him, to fiction, verse, fables,
biography, criticism, drama or journalism--a little of everything. For
my own part, I have always had something akin to pity for the fellow who
is bound hand and foot to one interest. Let the fame and the greater
profits of specialization go hang; "an able bodied writin' man" can best
possess his soul if he does not harness Pegasus to plow forever in one
cabbage patch.
Like the Ozark Mountain farmer who also ran a country store, a saw mill,
a deer park, a sorghum mill, a threshing machine and preached in the
meetin' house on Sunday mornings, I have turned my pen to any honest
piece of writing that appealed strongly enough to my fancy--travel,
popular science, humor, light verse, editorials, essays, interviews,
personality sketches and captions for photographs. Genius takes a short
cut to the highroad. But waste not your sympathy on the rest of us, for
the byways have their own charm.
While one is finding his footing in the free lance fields, he had best
not hold himself above doing any kind of journalistic work that turns an
honest dollar. For he becomes richer not only by the dollar, but also by
the acquaintances he makes and the valuable experience he gains in
turning that dollar. There was a time--and not so long ago--when, if the
writer called at the waiting room of the Leslie-Judge Company, the girl
at the desk would try to guess whether he had a drawing to show to the
Art Editor, a frivolous manuscript for _Judge_ or a serious article for
_Leslie's_. At the Doubleday, Page plant the uncertainty was about
whether the caller sought the editor of _World's Work_, _Country Life_,
the _Red Cross Magazine_ or _Short Stories_--he had, at various times,
contributed to all of these publications.
Smile, if you like, but there is no better way to discover what you can
do best than to try your 'prentice hand at a great variety of topics and
mediums. The post-graduate course of every school of journalism is a
roped arena where you wrestle, catch as catch can, for the honors
bestowed by experience.
This experience, painfully acquired, should be backed up by an
elementary knowledge of salesmanship. Super-sensitive souls there are
who shudder at the mere mention of the word; and why this is so is not
difficult to understand--their minds are poisoned with sentimental
misapprehensions. Get rid of those misapprehensions just as swiftly as
you can. If you have something to sell, be it hardware or a manuscript,
common sense should dictate that you learn a little about how to sell
it.
Expert interviewers prepare themselves both for their topic and their
man before they go into a confab--a practice which should be followed to
some extent by every writer who sets out to interview an editor about a
manuscript. What you have to offer should be prepared to suit the needs
of the editor to whom the contribution is addressed. So you should study
your magazine just as carefully as you do the subject about which you
are writing. In your interview with the editor or in the letter which
takes the place of an interview, state briefly whatever should be useful
to his enlightenment. That is all. There you have the first principles
of what is meant by "an elementary knowledge of salesmanship." If you
don't know what you are talking about or anything about the possible
needs of the man to whom you are talking, how can you expect to interest
him in any commodity under heaven? Say nothing that you don't
believe--he won't believe it, either. Never fool him. If you do, you may
sell him once, but never again.
There is no dark art to salesmanship; it is simply a matter of
delivering the goods in a manner dictated by courtesy, sincerity, common
sense and common honesty. Be yourself without pose, and don't forget
that the editor--whether you believe it or not--is just as "human" as
you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake
off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like
the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely
and straight from the shoulder--also briefly, because he is a busy
man--state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and go
your way.
He will judge you and your manuscript on merits; if he does not, he will
not long continue to be an editor. The two greatest curses of his
existence (I speak from experience) are the poses and the incurable
loquaciousness of some of his callers and correspondents. Don't attempt
to spring any correspondence school salesmanship on a real editor. Learn
what real salesmanship is, from a real salesman--who may sell bacon, or
steel or motor cars instead of manuscripts. He lives down your street,
perhaps. Have a talk with him. He will tell you of the profits in a
square deal and in knowing your business, and what can be accomplished
by a little faith.
If you are temperamentally unfit to sell your own writings, get a
competent literary agent to do the job for you. But don't too quickly
despair, for after all, there is nothing particularly subtle about
salesmanship. Sincerity, however crude, usually carries conviction. If
you know a "story" when you see it, if you write it right and type it in
professional form and give it the needed illustrations; then if you
offer it in a common sense manner to a suitable market, you can be
trusted to handle your own products as successfully as the best salesman
in America--as successfully as Charles Schwab himself. For, above all,
remember this: the editor is just as eager to buy good stuff as you are
to sell it. Nothing is simpler than to make a sale in the literary
market if you have what the editor wants.