A nose for news, some perseverance, a typewriter and a camera have thus far been listed as the equipment most essential to success for a writer of non-fiction who sets out to trade in the periodical market as a free lance. Rather brief mention has been made of the matter of literary style. This is not because the writer of this book lacks reverence for literary craftsmanship. It is simply because, with the facts staring him in the face, he must set down his conviction that a polished style is not a matter of tremendous importance to the average editor of the average American periodical.

Journalists so clumsy that, in the graphic phrase of a short grass poet, "they seem to write with their feet," sell manuscripts with clock-like regularity to first-class markets. The magazines, like the newspapers, employ "re-write men" to take crude manuscripts to pieces, rebuild them and give them a presentable polish. The matter of prime importance to most of our American editors is an article's content in the way of vital facts and "human interest." Upon the matter of style the typical editor appears to take Matthew Arnold's words quite literally:

"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style."

No embittered collector of rejection slips will believe me when I declare that the demand for worth-while articles always exceeds the supply in American magazine markets. None the less it is true, as every editor knows to his constant sorrow. The appetite of our hundreds of periodicals for real "stories" never has been satisfied. The menu has to be filled out with a regrettable proportion of bran and ersatz.

The fact that a manuscript lacks all charm of style will not blast its chances of acceptance if the "story" is all there and is typed into a presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write men" around the shop!

It is not a lack of artistry that administers the most numerous defeats to the novice free lance. It is a lack of market judgment. When he has completed his manuscript he sits down and hopefully mails it out to the first market that strikes his fancy. He shoots into the dark, trusting to luck.

A huge army of disappointed scribblers have followed that haphazard plan of battle. They would know better than to try to market crates of eggs to a shoe store, but they see nothing equally absurd in shipping a popular science article to the Atlantic Monthly or an "uplift" essay to the Smart Set. They paper their walls with rejection slips, fill up a trunk with returned manuscripts and pose before their sympathetic friends as martyrs.

Many of these defeated writers have nose-sense for what is of national interest. They write well, and they take the necessary pains to make their manuscripts presentable in appearance. If they only knew enough to offer their contributions to suitable markets, they soon would be scoring successes. What they can't get into their heads is that the names in an index of periodicals represent needs as widely varied as the names in a city directory.

Take, for example, five of our leading weeklies: The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Leslie's, The Outlook and The Independent. They all use articles of more or less timeliness, but beyond this one similarity they are no more alike in character than an American, an Irishman, an Englishman, a Welshman and a Scot. Your burning hot news "story" which The Saturday Evening Post turned down may have been rejected because the huge circulation of the Post necessitates that its "copy" go to press six or seven weeks before it appears upon the newsstands. You should have tried The Independent, which makes a specialty of getting hot stuff into circulation before it has time to cool. Your interview with a big man of Wall Street which was returned by The Outlook might find a warm welcome at Leslie's. A character sketch of the Democratic candidate for President might not please Leslie's in the least, but would fetch a good price from Collier's. Your article on the Prairie Poets might be rejected by three other weeklies, but prove quite acceptable to The Outlook.

When you have completed a manuscript, forget the inspiration that went into its writing and give cold and sober second thought to this matter of marketing. The Outlook might have bought the article that Collier's rejected. Collier's might have bought the one that The Outlook rejected. Every experienced writer will tell you that this sort of thing happens every day.

Don't snort in disdain because the editor of The Ladies' Home Journal rejects a contribution on economics. Maybe the lady's husband would like it. So try it on The World's Work, or Leslie's or System. It might win you a place of honor, with your name blazoned on the cover.

Too many discouraged novices believe that the bromide of the rejection slip—"rejection implies no lack of merit"—is simply a piece of sarcasm. It is nothing of the sort. In tens of thousands of instances it is a solemn fact. Don't sulk and berate the editors who return your manuscript, but carefully read the contribution again, trying to forget for the moment that it is one of your own precious "brain children." Cold-bloodedly size it up as something to sell. Then you may perceive that you have been trying to market a crate of eggs at a shoe store. Eggs are none the less precious on that account. Try again—applying this time to a grocer. If he doesn't buy, it will be because he already has all the eggs on hand that he needs. In that event, look up the addresses of some more grocers.

The same common sense principles apply in selling manuscripts to the magazines and newspapers as in marketing any other kind of produce. The top prices go to the fellow who delivers his goods fresh and in good order to buyers who stand in need of his particular sort of staple. Composing a manuscript may be art, but selling it is business.

Naturally, it requires practice to become expert in picking topics of wide enough appeal to interest the public which reads magazines of national circulation. Every beginner, except an inspired genius, is likely to be oppressed with a sense of hopelessness when he is making his first desperate attempts to "break in." The writer can testify feelingly on this point from his own experience. Kansas City was then my base of operations, and it seemed as if I never possibly could find anything in that far inland locality worthy of nation-wide attention. Everything I wrote bounced back with a printed rejection slip.

At last, however, I discovered a "story" that appeared to be of undeniable national appeal. Missouri, for the first time in thirty-six years, had elected a Republican governor. I decided that the surest market for this would be a magazine dealing with personality sketches. If a magazine of that type would not buy the "story," I was willing to own myself whipped.

On the afternoon when we were all sure that Herbert Hadley had won, I begged a big lithographed portrait of the governor-elect from a cigar store man who had displayed it prominently in his front window. There was no time, then, to search for a photograph. A thrill of conviction pervaded me that at last my fingers were on a "story" that no magazine editor, however much he might hate to recognize the worth of new authors, could afford to reject.

The newspaper office files of clippings gave me all the information necessary for a brief biography; the lithograph should serve for an illustration. By midnight that Irresistible Wedge for entering the magazines was in the mails.... Sure enough, the editors of Human Life bought it. And, by some miracle of speed in magazine making never explained to this day, they printed it in their next month's issue.

The moral of this was obvious—that in the proper market a real "story," even though it be somewhat hastily written, will receive a sincere welcome. The week after this Irresistible Wedge appeared in print I threw up my job as a reporter and dived off of the springboard into free lancing. A small bank account gave me assurance that there was no immediate peril of starving, and I wisely kept a connection with the local newspaper. In case disaster overtook me, I knew where I could find a job again.