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Show , Tii Cure Ciiittti.illon 1'orovcr. H TakaCiscaiets pnnuv CJthurtlc. lOo orSSo. H It C. C. C. fall to euro. uruKtflsts rafunil tnonwr. THE QROP OF NOVELS. Works of Fiction Form the Majority of Manuscripts Sont to PublUhera. Novels form tho largest part of the book manuscripts received by publishing publish-ing houses, says the Philadelphia Times. Out of 100 manuscripts received re-ceived during a recent fortnight by a promiuent publishing firm 03 were novels. In another caso 51 out of 100 manuscripts submitted during dur-ing three weeks were novels. This same publisher told me that sometimes the percentage of novels would reach 75 per cent. This tendency for novel writing is undoubtedly due to the fact that tho greatest "hits" in thu literary world aro made with novels, und this stimulates the average writer to work in this field. Of all these novels it is plain to be seen from tho figures given in the preceding pre-ceding paragraph that scores must be written before one is accepted. And even if a writer has a novel accepted tho percentage of success Is decidedly against him. During this Investigation process I selected fifteen recently published pub-lished novels issued by six different houses and I learned that the entire number printed of these fifteen was 41,000 copies, or i),700 copies of each. And in this fifteen 0,000 copies were printed of one novel really the only successful novel of tho lot. It is safe to say that of these fifteen novels the averago sale of each will not reach 1,000 copies. Ilut giving that number to each, tho novel belling at $1, tho author would receive less than $100 for his manuscript, deducting for mutilated mutilat-ed copies and tlioso sent to tho newspapers, news-papers, etc. I lenow caso after case where authors did not receive $50, all told,, as a return for a novel, and sometimes some-times vcrv much less than that. |