In offering contributions be as terse and business-like as possible. Editors have hearts, and sometimes these hearts are made to ache pretty considerably. But first and foremost an Editor, if he is a good one, must be business-like. He has to place the interests of the magazine before your private wants, however pressing and painful they may be to yourself. I feel that I am saying cruel things when I write like this, but they are true, and if I would really help you, you must know the truth.
There would be no magazines worth reading if MSS. were accepted on such pleas, and yet they are constantly being urged.
Try to think of yourself as a merchant who has something of value for sale. The Editor represents the public, who want to buy. He will quickly appreciate you if he sees that you can give him what his readers want, and, believe me, he will never care for you, as a writer, on any other grounds, whatever.
“My dear,” an old lady and a very celebrated author said to me many years ago, “please bear one fact in mind. Your Publisher or your Editor may love you as well as himself, but he will never love you better.”
Now the Editor or Publisher who takes unsuitable work from a mere sense of pity, inevitably courts financial disaster, and he can scarcely be expected to love the would-be contributor to that extent.
Introductions
I should like to say a word here with regard to Introductions. Many people who wish to write have an idea that an introduction from a successful author is “Open Sesame!” to the world of literature. This is a vast mistake. You stand or fall on your own merits, and on those only. The utmost your influential friends can do for you is to get your MS. looked at. If it is silly or unsuitable, back it goes just as surely as if it had not been supported by any great name. This is a fact which is worth knowing.
I am afraid I must mention one more don’t.
One last don’t
Don’t send a MS. to a very busy Editor, with the remark that you know it is unsuitable, but you would be so much obliged if he would read it carefully, and give you his candid opinion as to whether you have got the literary faculty or not. Editors are usually kind-hearted, and don’t like to refuse requests of this sort. But do the people who worry them with ill-written, bulky and all but illegible MSS., realise what a large demand they are making upon valuable time, and by what right they demand a professional opinion from, in many cases, a total stranger? The same people would be much shocked if they were told that they expected advice from their doctor or lawyer for nothing, and yet the Author or Editor who has amassed his knowledge through years of patient toil, must give it away to any one who has the impertinence to ask for it. I feel strongly on this point, for in very truth it is, as a rule, casting pearls before swine, as those who could be really helped with advantage are generally far too modest to ask for such assistance.