MONEY IN LITERATURE.
Profits of the Pen--Ten Cents a Word--A Millionaire
Novelist--$3,000 for a Short Story--How Hall Caine Won a Fortune--A
Pilgrimage of Publishers--“One Thousand Times Across the
Atlantic”--$5,000 for a Song--Suggestions to Writers--What It Pays
to Write.
Literature requires the least capital of any enterprise with the
possibilities of rich reward and wide renown. A pen, a bottle of ink, a
ream of paper, and--_brains_. These are all. There is no occupation so
discouraging to the one who lacks the last-named quality and few so
alluring to those who possess it. Authors are supposed to write for
fame, but fame and fortune are twin sisters which are seldom separated.
Hack writers are indeed hard worked and poorly paid, but in the higher
walks of literature rewards are generous. In London, the rates to
first-class writers are $100 per 1,000 words. In one case $135 was paid,
and in another $175 demanded. Amelia Barr, the famous novelist, receives
$20,000 a year from the sale of her books. There is a great deal of
subterranean literature unknown to the critics and the magazine writers,
but which, nevertheless, pays handsomely. One Richebourg, of Paris, has
4,000,000 readers, and often receives $12,000 for the serial rights
alone, yet he is unknown to the magazine public. In this country the
“Albatross Novels,” by Albert Ross, sold to the extent of a million
copies, and the author acquired such a fortune that he was able to
engage in charity on a magnificent scale, yet the author is unknown to
fame.
Among the instances of the pecuniary rewards for single works are “Les
Miserables,” by Victor Hugo, which brought $80,000 and “Trilby,” which
netted the author the princely sum of $400,000. “Quo Vadis,” by
Sienkiewicz, sells all over the world, but its author had already made
half a million dollars with his pen before he wrote that popular book.
It is not our purpose in this chapter to treat of books requiring
transcendent genius to create, but rather to suggest titles of works
which may be composed by less gifted authors, books, which if written
with fair ability cannot fail to be of interest and profit.