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Let this be your rule: Don't write to an editor. He has an objection to both reading letters and answering them; he thinks he does enough when he peruses your manuscript. A good article requires no explanation; it should be its own commentary. Be content, therefore, simply to put your article in an envelope with another envelope, and dispatch it. The editor needs not to be told that it is sent for publication if suitable and for return if unsuitable. And he does not care a pin what are your ambitions and your circumstances; or whether this is your "very first" or your ten thousandth effort; whether you have written in the flush of health or on your dying couch; whether you are starving or beautifully rich. What are these facts to him? They do not in the least affect the value of the article. If it pleases him, he accepts; if not, he refuses. He is scarcely Adviser-in-Chief to the Literary Ladies of Great Britain, nor yet the Charity Organisation Society. He has no interest in you. What interests him is his circulation, his influence, his advertisement department.
The editorial notices of a few papers state that the title and scope of an article must be submitted before the article itself. This is absurd, and in most cases you are safe in ignoring the regulation. An article cannot be judged by its title and a resumé of it, and there is no doubt that editors who enforce such a rule often decline to see articles which would have suited them.
If for any special reason a letter should be essential, make it brief, explicit, and formal; spend as much care over the letter as you have given to the article which it is to cover. See that it contains no superfluous words, and see that it is correctly spelt; some letters aren't.
When a series of articles is in contemplation or a novel departure to be suggested, it sometimes happens that a rather elaborate explanation is necessary. Do not send such an explanation in writing until you have demonstrated the impossibility of seeing the editor in person.
Now editors do not like being seen, and certainly they do not like being seen by the casual contributor. Despite the fact that this persevering person is indispensable to them and often their best friend, they fall into the habit of regarding the casual contributor as their natural enemy, against whom warfare is to be waged. It is ridiculous, but it is true. So be it. Accept the situation, and fight for yourself, taking your advantage where you can, and casting away scruples of punctilio. By actually seeing an editor you gain a double advantage. For in the first place it is much more difficult for him to refuse viva voce (especially to a woman3) than by letter, and in the second place a personal explanation of a scheme is likely to be much more effective than a written one. Therefore resolve to see your editor face to face.
That editors are invisible is taken for granted only by the inexperienced. Without doubt editors love to surround themselves with an atmosphere of mystery, aloofness, and sovereignty, but in truth they are human beings, and may be so treated. The invisibility of editors is mainly a legend. If you call at a newspaper office and, presenting your card, ask in a firm voice to see the editor, the probability is that you will see him, or some one else clothed with authority. You may be requested to state the nature of your business, in which case you will make the nature of your business as vague and enticing as possible. Possibly the editor, if he is timid, will invent the story that he is engaged; possibly he may really be engaged; in either case you will ask for an appointment, or wait; a personal interview is worth waiting for. If you are refused an appointment and also told that to wait would be useless, say that you will call to-morrow or the next day in the hope of the editor being then disengaged. In any event, be pertinacious; and do not fear to worry the man. By pertinacity you will eventually see him.
Having at last got sight of your editor, treat him considerately. Since you have conquered you can afford to show mercy. Explain yourself tersely, and let your visit be brief. Strive to impress by your directness and business-like thought and action.
3. I by no means suggest that a woman should exploit her femininity in order to gain points against a man.
Chapter IX
Notes on the Leading Types of Papers
In a previous chapter I have emphasised the urgency of examining with care and regularity all the principal papers. Nothing is more important to the outside contributor than a thorough comprehension of their various policies and their essential differences. Many beginners, with a quite creditable literary technique, render all effort futile by omitting to study what I may call the characters of the publications to which they offer MSS. They know papers (except the one or two which they happen to read for pleasure) merely by name. They may by chance have some dim notion, gathered from hearsay, of the aim and spirit of this paper or that--but accurate, direct information concerning these things, they possess none. Having written an article, they send it to the first paper whose name enters their heads, without giving a single thought to the question of suitability. By such beginners the Standard, the Sun, and the Morning Advertiser are recognised merely as so many dailies, the Saturday Review, Tit-Bits, and the Bazaar merely as so many weeklies, and the Strand, Macmillan's Magazine, and the Fortnightly merely as so many monthlies; and no doubt when their stuff has been refused by the Standard, they blithely forward it to the Sun, and so on.
Since the early failures of every aspirant are without doubt largely due to the neglect of this branch of journalistic learning, let me once more lay stress on the fact that every paper differs from every other paper in its needs--in what it demands from the outside contributor. Each paper has its own public, its own policy, its own tone, its own physiognomy, its own preferences, its own prejudices. These must be studied--as one would study a subject like zoology. And as in zoology, to acquire a useful knowledge, it is necessary to classify. The press divides itself naturally into a few distinctive groups, an acquaintance with whose characteristics will form the best, indeed the only, foundation for that wide, detailed erudition ultimately to be obtained through years of experience and observation. Of these groups I will briefly mention the most important.
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Perhaps of all the different kinds of papers, that most useful to the beginner is the "popular weekly" class, chiefly represented by Tit-Bits, Answers, Pearson's Weekly, Cassell's Saturday Journal, and Success. These papers pay liberally and promptly (one or two of them before publication), and they do not exact from the contributor a high literary standard. Their matter falls into two main divisions: articles beginning with "How"--broadly, "How the other half lives;" and articles enumerating curious facts and incidents--for example, "Peers who have become Cabmen." If you can evolve novel and striking subjects, and have the patience to collect such information as may be necessary to work the subjects out, you may fairly rely upon gaining entrance sooner or later to the columns of these papers, however elementary your technique. Here is also a busy market for short melodramatic stories--stories for which "action" and a certain ingenuity of plot are the only essentials. Do not imagine that the editors of this sort of periodical are easily pleased. Although they care nothing for the graces of style, they know precisely what they want, and they insist on getting it.
Next to the popular penny weeklies as prey meet for the aspirant, I name the three "Gazettes," the Pall Mall, the Westminster, and the St. James's. These--the first two especially--make a point of their hospitality to the outside contributor. They appeal of course to a cultured class, and they are catholic in their tastes--ready for anything provided it is topical and well done. They pride themselves on being literary, and therefore good style is essential. In this particular, and also in their habits of returning rejected MSS. with promptness, and of paying regularly without demanding the delivery of an account, they differ from most of
