One Thousand Ways to Make Money by Page Fox

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.