The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-20
BOOKS OF OUR TRADE

eighth edition Editor Publishing | company Ridgewood, N. J.
 The writer is the only known worker who sets out with the hope Of ac- quiring fame and wealth without an ap- premiership to his trade, and even with out the requisite tools. How many men
 would employ and pay plumber who came furnished with pencil and pen knife to stop a leaking faucet? How | many families would employ physl- elan who had completed a free school | course of physi ology and who could count the pulse by an Ingersoll watch? | Yet, any person who 'can write pleasant letter." aspires to write the great American novel, or to put the | Civil war into the one and only epic. Time may have been, though doubts present themselves, when genius burned without the fuel of long labor and earn est trial, failure. effort and success. | Certain 1t is that until very lately there | was no school but experience, and that a hard one, in which the writer might
 prepare for his trade Take the in- stance of a young person who has an aptitude for seeing stories in life and love of writing them down--that is all of genius accredited to the writer l today. That young person makes good story, learns in some column of | "Querfies and Answers" that manu | script must be written Ion one side of | lDe paper Only, d0u SenQS Oll tnt tdlts
 written, he is very apt to think and perhaps say, with his hearts blood" The faults of mere mechanism that that
 story carries would be hard to esti
 mate. There will be errors of para graphing, punctuating (recall the ter rifying punctuating of the writer of lpleasant letters--it is all dash--dash-- dashedness-your true professional deals lightly with the dash, and has
 made acquaintance with the comma and the semlcolon). to say nothing of
 glarlng faults In grammar and even spelling that at times will run awry; land sentences that hang as loosely
 from construction as broken kite
 tail from a tree limb. This of the mere shell of the story, the hundred faults
 that may be found In the young per
 sons manuscript such as construction
 of plot, drawing of character and the life, there Is not here space to con-
 sider. So the story, with perhaps much of good in It. goes from editor to edf- tor each In turn recognizes the good qualities, but has neither time nor in- clination to take the part of literary
 adviser or teacher, so back goes the
 story to young genius-with a printed slip of rejection: What do you expect!"
 At last if the young writer is more than usually lucky the manuscript falls into the hands of some editors who just
 then has enjoyed an excellent dinner,
 or had an unexpected fortune left him,
 or won suit in chancery--and because
 of the pleasant glow of attendant good
 feeling that editor takes the story,
 puts 1t through d severe course of treat
 ment, sends the writer check (with
 no bill or no de-reduction for literary physicians treatment and consultation
 and prints the altered and amended
 story. Then Is the young writer grate
 full? Not at all He probably de-
 luges that editorial office with com
 plaints and growls at the unWarranted
 spelling of work of untraned and
 untutored genius!
 An. well should the young person keep
 on at authorship rather than put his
 hand to the blow and there will come a
 time when he will accept with rejoicing
 any cancellations that will cause an edi-
 tor to accept the work of his hands!
 Now the exigencies of the times have
 produced the professional literary doc
 tor; for certain amount this physician
 of brain product will treat and often
 cure the worst case of story ineptitude!
 Moreover for a per cent of the proceeds
 such as one will sell anything that has
 a market value in the literary mart and
 1t may be safely surmised that any writ
 CT who loves his work would rather
 write a hundred romances than sell a
 single sonnetl This business of remaking and marketing literary wares is a com
 paratively new one and there are in it many quacks and charlatans, as in the l early days there were innumerable herb
 doctors. steam doctors and medicasters,
 but the profession is fast becoming a
 recognized one, and the young writer
 who early finds a reliable bureau or
 agency will find the way to fame and
 wealth far more quickly than the one
 who trusting his own untutored genius
 plunges helplessly In the sea of his own
 empirieism. Now this thin volume "1001 | tn all irtc is of
 the best tools of the trade that a young
 or for that matter old, writer can have
 at hand. The young writer will find
 even in the four page preface informa-
 tion that he might spend years waiting to F picking ap-hazzard-simpe things which T. when once known seem a part of all
 ordinary possessed knowledge Following the preface comes a list of the advertis- ing journals, the book publishers the II camera papers, the educational journals, tho English magazines that buy the stuff H of American writers, the juvenile mar ket, the outdoor magazines. Here are | listed with correct addresses even the
 moving picture companies Ca new and | paying field for aspirants to authorship, | the gospel song publishers and the music and play publishers. Here is concise and II correct information for every class of | literary worker. The book is valuable | and not to be dispensed with, by the earnest worker in any literary field but 1t is not infallibe; it is surprising not to find in the list of publishers one of the best, most reliable and courteous firms of New York city. A firm of Chl- cago doing an immense selling and a good publishing business has no mention in this volume. A good firm of music publishers in New York city, one, by the way, that publishes the work of several of our southern song writers, has no mention. But the field is worldwide, hardly any book may cover the whole immensity. This volume Is certainly the one that comes nearest to covering the field and is one that no writer will willingly be without.
 Writing the Short story" by J. Berg II Esenwein. Hinds, Noble X Eldredge,