Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-09
Writers and Publishers.
ROYALTIES ON BOOKS

Member Of . Publishing Firm Relates
Incidents Connected With
His Business.
Cyrus Townsend Brady Is suing New
York publishing house for q whole lot OF
money. Mr. Brady's name Is probably seen
oftener in naore magazines than that Of any
other writing person In the United States.
Mr.. Brady was first boy. then q naval
officer. then an ordained preacher. and.
after that, and up to the present time. q
prolific producer Of magazine copy. Some
time ago Mr.. Brady wrote novelette, called
"A Corner In Coffee" which the Smart Set
printed. The story had a dramatic value.
and while ago Mr.. Brady had an offer
for the dramatic rights. While the deal
was pending It was discovered that the
publishing company had already disposed
of the dramatic rights to a well-known
theatrical firm. and that the story was IN
process of dramatization by professional
play tinker who makes a speciality OF work
Of this sort. Hence the suit Mr.. Brady
claims what is known as the authors
right to his own stuff after 1t has been
printed
nent New York publishing firm was In
Washington on some copyright business. A
Star man asked him for enlightenment as
to the merits OF MI. BradyS trouble with
his publishers.
ST don't know Mr.. Brady personally" re-
piled the publisher. "but do know great
many other writer's Of his grade, and am
bound to say that the majority OF them are
wholly unreasonable In their business deal
ings with publishers. and exceedingly hard
to get on with.
"Now. nobody expects writer OF fiction
to be a good business man, but you d nat
urally suppose that such people would read
| q contract, anyhow, before signing IL. AS
to that business appertaining to the ORA
matte rights, we had fine old riotouS time
| Of 1t In our New York office few months
ago Just because new author on our hst
had failed to read the terms OF a contract
he signed in making over book to u.s.
Custom Regarding Dramatic Rights.
"You see it is the custom of publishers
| in these days OF dramatized novels to re-
serve the dramatic rights of novel In the
contract The dramatic rights clause is
inserted in all Of the contracts for BOOKS
Of fiction as a matter OF custom ana
course. Once in while some author
comes along who makes kick over the
clause and when that happens, we come
| to some sort of an agreement with him. II
his book is particularly promising Where-
by we agree to share and share alike in the
dramatic rights.
| "Ordinarily. however authors skip this
clause altogether, having little idea that
anybody will ever want to use their books
| for stage purposes. And when they SKIP
| the clause. and sign the contract. the ORA
| matte rights belong to US as matter Oh
COURSE.
That's what happened in the case or
pretty good seller we published year
ago last spring The author didn't pay any
attention to the contract clause as TO the
! dramatic rights. and signed the contract
handing the dramatic rights over to US.
when the book got to going wei a num-
Der Of different adapters for the stage gov
hold of 1t simultaneously and saw at once
that 1t was eminently well adapted Tor
dramatization. They Immediately dug the
author up, and the first thing he knew ne
had them bidding. and in pretty good sums sums
too, for the dramatic right to his book
Then he came down to our publishing OF
flee, a good deal elated. received him;
".say,' he said. Tn going to have that
book Of mine drama Wse.a .o,,o 70 do the
work of dramatizing it,?
He mentioned the name of well-known
play tinker.
to me. and Til talk with him and give him
my figure as to the dramatic rights. The
dramatic rights belong to the firm, you
know
Thought Publishers Were Unfair.
HE was. up in the air in less than a sec
ond, storming and throwing his arms
around I showed him the contract he had
signed. He swore that he'd never even
read that clause in the contract. and de-
clared that It would be simply swinish-
that's the word he used-on our part to
claim the dramatic rights when they clear
ly belonged to him. the author. morally,
ANYHOW In spite of the old contract.
ut was q rough house sort of time we
| had of 1t over that little point, and the
Arm didn't come out second best, either
At that, believe that IL the young man
hadn't stormed and ragged at us the way
he did we'd have cut the dramatic rights
in two and given him half But we didn't.
We 1ust remained swinsh
ITS the simple truth that most writers
of works Of fiction possess business views
that are simply childish. Only week OF
so ago at the New York office l permitted
myself to become unnecessarily 'het up
over the conversation Of one Of the writing
men on our list. Last autumn we pub
ushed a piece Of fiction Of his making. 1t
was his first book. Quite unexpectedly
that is, we Of the firm didn't expect IT,
even IL the author did-the book made
big success from the outset. Inside OF
three months we sold between 1900 and
so. 900 copies of It. These big sales. OF
course put the young man who wrote the
book in clover. IIis royalties during the
frat three months were about $4,000.
HE had never had anything like so much
money in lump before, and | grieve to
say that he lost his head. He had pas
sion for horse racing. Now. $4,000 is
right tidy little sum of money If devoted to
the ordinary uses and comforts of life. but
1t isn't any terrible amount of money
wherewith to crafty passion for horse
racing.
VIRTUALLY all Of this young mans $4,000
ROYALTY money on his first book went into
the satchels of the bookmakers. Just about
this time the sales on his book began to
sag some He noticed this. for he was
very careful In his scrutiny OF our sales
accounts He figured 1t would be a good
thing for him to get from under. He need
ed some more money, and so he came to US
and offered to sell his interest in the book
for a pat $1,000
81 advised him not to do this. I told him
that books have a queer habit of getting
their second wind and coming again, so to
speak, and that he stood pretty good
chance to make a lot more than 5000 out
of his book II he'd only be patient and wait
for his royalties.
Signed Away His Rights.
But, no. he couldn't see 1T. He had it
all figured out that his book had seen it's
ltttJa day and that he'd rather be putting