The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1904-07-22
HOW JACK LONDON "ARRIvED.'
Popular Author Struggled Hard fol
High Position He Holds.

spcndent, now at the front, is but
twenty-eight years old. Three years
ago he was unheard of by the reading
world. To-day he is read everywhere.
is sought by publishers, and the pages
OF the magazines, from The Century
down, are open to him.
The story Of how he arrived"
how he first set foot upon the
stepping-stone to success, he
tells in The Editor, the New
York magazine for literary workers,
incidentally giving the latter class
some excellent advice. Here are a
few OF his terse, pregnant sentences
Work! Don't wait for some good
Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out
yourself.
Fiction pays best OF all.
Don't write too much. Don't dash
off a 6000-word story before breakfast.
Avoid the unhappy ending, the
harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrl-
ble-if you care to see in print the
things you write.
Keep a notebook. Travel with it,
eat with it, sleep with it.. Slap into
1t every stray thought that lutters
up into your brain.
"As soon as a fellow sells two or
three things to the magazines" says
Jack London, Ibis friends all ask him
how he managed to do it." and then
he goes on, in his own racy way, to
tell how 1t happened to him.
He had many liabilities and no as
sets, no income and several mouths
to feed. He lived in California, far
from the great publishing centers,
and did rot know what IN editor
looked like. But he sat down and
wrote. Day by day his pile Of manu-
scripts mounted up. He had vague
ideas, obtained from a Sunday supple
ment, that a minimum rate Of $40 a
thousand words al paid, and figured
on earning $500 = month, without
o~verstocking the market.
One morning the postman brought
him. instead OF the usual long, thick
manuscript envelope. a short. thin
one. He couldn't open it right away.
1t seemed a sacred thing. 1t con
tained the written words of an editor
OF a big magazine. When. modest as
the offer for this 4000-word story
would be at the minimum rate-S40,
Of course-he opened the letter. Five
dollars!
Not having died right then and
there, Mr.. London is convinced that
he may yet qualify as an oldest in
habitant. Five dollars! When? The
editor did not state.
But, by and by, in the course of its
wanderings, one of his stories reached
an editor who could see the genius of
Jack London, and had the patience to
penetrate beneath the husk of wordy
Introduction and discover the golden
grain.
Here Is the incident that proved
the turning point in Jack London's
literary career, as he SO graphically
tells it:
Nothing remained but to get out
and shovel coal. l had done it be-
fore, and earned more money at it.
l resolved to do it again, and l GER
tainly should have lone it. had 1t not
been for The Black Cat.
Eyes, The Black Cat. The post
man brought me an offer from 1t for
a 4000-word story which was more
lengthy than %strengthy, il l would
grant permission to cut it down half.
Grant permission? l told them they
could cut it down two-halves II they'd
only send the money along, which
they did, by return mail. AS for the
IS previously mentioned, l finally re
ceived 1t, after publication and a great
deal of embarrassment and trouble
And the rate he received for his first
Black Cat story was nearly 20 times
what the fve-dollar editor paid!
Nor is Jack London the only writer
who has been lifted from %obscurity to
prominence by the lucky Black Cat,
which, as the New York Press has
truly said, has done more for short
story writer's and short-story readers
than any other publication.
Each of it's famous prize competi-
tons has brought new writer's to the
front. In it's most recent, the $1,000
prize was won by a young Texan who
had never before written a story, and
the second, 81, 300, went to a lawyers
wife in an obscure Missouri town.
1t has just inaugurated another con-
test in which $4,000 will be paid to
writer's in sums of from 500 to 81, 500.
This will, no doubt, add many new
names to the list of those who have
arrived" through it's recognition.
The conditions are announced in the
current issue of The Black Cat, and
will also be mailed free to any one
by the Shortstory Publishing Com
pany, Boston, Mass. Even those who
cannot write q winning story them
selves may earn SO by giving q time
ly tip to some friend who can.
But all should bear In mind that 1t
will be entirely useless for any one
to send a story to The Black Cat
without first reading and complying
with all the published conditions.
Here is a chance for the reader to dig
dollars out of his brain. for what life
does not at least contain one tale