The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-29
A LITERARY SCHEME.

A contributor to this issue of THE CALL
outlines a plan under which the produc-
ton and marketing of literature may be
reduced to business principles. His sug-
gestion is that the method of the news
paper is the rational one for literature
that is, authors might hire themselves to a
manager, who will pay them a salary,
direct their production and make what
profit he can out of the business. This
profit will be the difference between what
he pays and what he receives. The fasci-
mating part of the plan is that it assures an
income to the author and relieves him of
the burden of marketing his own wares.
But here a difficulty presents itself.
Would an author consent to place himself
in such restraint? Are not vanity and
freedom conspicuous elements of literary
success, and would not these be hampered
under the plan suggested? Wecan readily
imagine this to be the case with great
geniuses; but apparently THE CALLS con-
tributor is not taking them into account,
for the reason that when they are estab-
lished their need for fixed income passes
away. He is referring evidently to clever
writers, and perhaps even to geniuses who
lack the marketing faculty.
When one comes to think of it there
appears to be something strange in the
fact that authorship is so haphazard a pro-
fession and stands so distinctly apart from
the operation of principles which govern
nearly all other affairs. Even the musician
and the painter, who belong in the same
category of producers" have better estab-
Hshed systems, for musician without an
income is an anomaly and a large part of a
painters business is the filling of orders. 1t
is true that the painters orders are mostly
by transient patrons, but many painters are
teachers also, and if they are not they can
be. The author has none of these oppor-
tunities. His fight, therefore, is vastly
harder-so much harder that undoubtedly
many of the writer's who might have
become great have abandoned the profess
sion simply because they lacked the mer-
camille faculty which would enable them
to sell their productions. Many such cases
have come under the observation of every
editor.
Our contributors suggestion is alluring,
in spite of the defects which may appear
in it. The work required of the editors of
newspapers and magazines in the reading
of manuscripts IS enormous, and as it
must be hasty it has an element of uncer-
taintY. A system such as that suggested
could be so ably managed as to abolish this
evil to great extent. Orders for specific
lines of work could be filled much more
acceptably than under the present loose
and unorganized plan, and many other
good things might be accomplished. A
prominent incentive to the young writer
would be the certainty not only of living,
but of an opportunity to establish him
self independently after he had achieved
fame under managers direction.
The leading difficulty would be to find a
person competent to manage such bust
ness. Being a new undertaking it would
suffer under difficulties on that account.
Why should not some great university
undertake the task? Why, to be more
specific, should not the Stanford Univer-
sity exploit the suggestion, limiting the
writers to young Californians, or those
who have lived in California a certain
number of years, and instead of paying
salaries establish a college of literature on
an industrial basis, market the products in
business way and make the concern
strictly cooperative? The drill which
young writers could secure under the able
leadership of competent instructors would