Free press., 1904-07-02
How JACK LONDON 4ARRvEp..,
Popular Author Struggled Hard for
High Position He Holds.


story writer and brilliant war corre-
spondent, 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 q
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
of a 6000-wC<sl story before breakfast.
Avoid the unhappy ending. the
harsh. the brutal, the tragic, the horri-
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
it every stray thought that 1utters
up into your brain.
''As soon as fellow sells two or
three things to the magazines" says,
Jack London, his friends all ask him
| how he managed to do it," and then
he goes on, in his own racy way, to-
tell how it 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 an 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 minimum rate of SO a
thousand words was paid, and figured
on earning $500 a month, without
overstocking 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 sacred thing. 1t con-
| tanned the written words of an editor
Of a big magazine. When, modest as
ever, he had figured in his mind what
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 it's
wanderings, one of his stories reached
| -
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. I had done it be-
fore, and earned more money at it.
l resolved to do it again, and l GER
tainly should have done it. had it not
been for The Black Cat.
Yes, The Black Cat. The post
man brought me an offer from it for
a 4000-word story which was more
lengthy than strengthy, if 1 would
grant permission to cut it down half.
Grant permission? 1 told them they
could cut it down two-halves if they'd
only send the money along, which
they did, by return mail. AS for the
SIS previously mentioned, I finally re-
| ceiVed it, 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 fiI e-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 dore more for short
story writer's and short-story readers
than any other publication.
Each of it's famous prize competi-
tions has brought new writer's to the
front In it's most recent, the s2,1OO
prize was won by a young Texan who
had never before written story, and
the second, $1,000, went to a lawyers
/ wife in an obscure Missouri town.
1t has just inaugurated anoth er con-
test in which $4,000 will be paid to
i writer's in sums of from $100 to 81 500.
This will, no doubt, add many new
names to the list of those who have
| dTTtFSu through us TScOSH1tlOH
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 winning story them
selves may earn SO by giving time
| ly tip to some friend who can.
But all should bear in mind that it
will be entirely useless for any one
to send story to The Black Cat
without first reading and complying
with ali 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
worth telling?
spaln's Repudiated r .bs.