Magazine editor

“ It is the rare editor who rightly gauges his public psychology. Perhaps that is why, in the enormous growth of the modern magazine, there have been produced so few successful editors. The average editor is obsessed with the idea of "giving the public what it wants," whereas, in fact, the public, while it knows what it wants when it sees it, cannot clearly express its wants, and never wants the thing that it does ask for, although it thinks it does at the time. But woe to the editor and his periodical if he heeds that siren voice! ”

“ Experienced writers often submit an outline of an article to a magazine editor for his approval before preparing the material for publication. Free-lance writers of reputation may be asked by magazine editors to prepare articles on given subjects.
In addition to material obtained in these ways, articles may be secured from specialists who write as an avocation. An editor generally decides on the subject that he thinks will interest his readers at a given time and then selects the authority best fitted to treat it in a popular way. ”

“ What every magazine publisher knows as the most troublous years in the establishment of a periodical, the first half-dozen years of its existence, had already been weathered by the editor and publisher. The wife as editor and the husband as publisher had combined to lay a solid basis upon which Bok had only to build: his task was simply to rear a structure upon the foundation already laid. It is to the vision and to the genius of the first editor of The Ladies’ Home Journal that the unprecedented success of the magazine is primarily due. ”

“ About the only good quality that a magazine editor commonly has is his firm reliance on the infallibility of his own judgment. It is an honest error, and it enables him to mull through somehow with a certain kind of consistency. The only way to get a footing with him is to send him what you think he wants, not what you think he ought to want—and keep sending. ”

“ Clifford Bax as editor, myself as publisher; I had been asked how happy I considered to be its prospects. But I disclaimed the rôle of prophet.
“One can’t begin to guess,” I said; “a magazine is like a novel: it’s the expression of the editor’s personal taste. If the editor starts to include work he doesn’t like because he thinks it may succeed, he will fail as surely as the good novelist would fail if he tried to{16} write a pot-boiler. ”

“ Nothing so quickly injures the reputation of a magazine in the estimation of its readers. If a person, taking up a magazine, reads a story attracted by a famous name, and the story disappoints, the editor has a doubly disappointed reader on his hands: a reader whose high expectations from the name have not been realized and who is disappointed with the story. ”

“ These writers have conclusively settled two points in their own minds: first, that an editor is antagonistic to the struggling writer; and, second, that a manuscript sent in the ordinary manner to an editor never reaches him. Hence, some "influence" is necessary, and they set about to secure it.
Now, the truth is, of course, that there are no "literary back-stairs" to the editorial office of the modern magazine. There cannot be. The making of a modern magazine is a business proposition; the editor is there to make it pay. ”

“ You will always find something between the covers of the magazine that drives you to work, that spurs you to greater efforts, that puts you on the high road to success.
We pride ourselves on the fact that The Editor is a good, live text-book. It is a pretty sort of a teacher, you know, who never sees an educational journal; new methods and systems are cropping out constantly. And no writer—we leave this to you—likes to send a manuscript to a magazine that suspended a few months ago ”

“ The author need tell nothing about the manuscript; if what the editor wants is in it he will find it. An editor can stand a tremendous amount of letting alone. If young authors could be made to realize how simple is the process of “breaking into” the modern magazine, which apparently gives them such needless heartburn, they would save themselves infinite pains, time, and worry. ”

“ They are entirely out of the ordinary. There is no question but what this magazine will be a big success, providing the editor is not hedged in by a multitude of ‘don’t’s’ from the managing department. It is a well-known fact that many times an editor would like to accept material that in many ways would conflict with the policy of the magazine, and there is a loss of what no doubt would be valuable material. In fact, I have known for some time that adverse criticism of half a dozen people in different sections of the country have power to change the entire editorial policy of a magazine. ”

“ THE EDITOR'S PROBLEM To pay its running expenses this little magazine must have about three thousand subscribers. It now has between eleven and twelve hundred.
We want, to make good measure, two thousand more. This is a bare minimum, providing no salary to the editor. If enough people care for the magazine to support it to that extent, the editor will do her work for nothing—and be glad of the chance! If enough people care for it to support her—she will be gladder.
Do you like the magazine, its spirit and purpose? Do you find genuine interest and amusement in the novel—the short story? ”

“ The editor worthy of the name realizes that he has a triple responsibility. In selecting manuscripts, he must please the public first of all. But he must also please the owners of his magazine and he must please himself. He cannot make a success of his job unless all three demands are satisfied in every issue. The first responsibility is obvious. The magazine public reads to be entertained. The editor is under an unwritten contract not to bore his following. ”

“ But the management of a magazine would be too much trouble to me,—too much of a tie.”
“Don’t manage it! Follow the example of all the big editors, and live out of the business altogether,—but take the profits! You never see the real editor of a leading daily newspaper you know,—you can only interview the sub. The real man is, according to the seasons of the year, at Ascot, in Scotland, at Newmarket, or wintering in Egypt,—he is supposed to be responsible for everything in his journal, but he is generally the last person who knows anything about it. ”

“ It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear. ”

“ I received a pleasant surprise a few days ago when I found a new Science Fiction magazine at the newsstand—Astounding Stories. And I was still more pleased, and surprised, to find that the Editor seems to know that such stories should have real story interest, besides a scientific idea.
Of course I took with a grain of salt the invitation to write to the editor and give my preference of the kind of stories I like. I know that every editor, down in his heart, thinks his magazine is perfect "as is." In fact, praise is what they want, not suggestions, judging by the letters they print. ”

“ Particular kinds of news are collected and edited by persons in especially designated positions, such as the sporting editor, the society editor, the financial and market editor, the dramatic and musical editor, the real estate editor, the railroad editor, the marine editor, the labor editor, all of whom usually work under the direction of the managing editor. The special magazine sections of the Saturday or the Sunday issues are in charge of the magazine, or Sunday, editor. An exchange editor goes over all the newspapers received in exchange to clip and edit material worth reprinting. ”

“ Expert interviewers prepare themselves both for their topic and their man before they go into a confab—a practice which should be followed to some extent by every writer who sets out to interview an editor about a manuscript. What you have to offer should be prepared to suit the needs of the editor to whom the contribution is addressed. So you should study your magazine just as carefully as you do the subject about which you are writing. In your interview with the editor or in the letter which takes the place of an interview, state briefly whatever should be useful to his enlightenment. ”

“ Few editors allow their readers to advertise their spare books and magazines or let them argue their likes and dislikes as you do. My own criticisms are few. From a collector's point of view, however, one defect has been noticeable from the magazine's earliest days. Most folks have their favorite stories and, myself, like many another collector, 1 occasionally extract a story and bind it in a more permanent form. ”

“ I know of several famous magazine writers who never in their lives have got their material into print in the form in which it originally was submitted. They are what the trade calls "go-getters." They deliver the "story" as best they can, and a more skillful stylist completes the job.
Success in marketing non-fiction to popular magazines appears to hinge largely upon the quality of the thinking the writer does before he [Pg 66] sets pen to paper. A classic anecdote of New York's Fleet Street may illustrate the point:
The publisher of a national weekly was hiring a newspaper man as editor. ”

“ In fact, we may well ponder whether the full editorial authority and direction of a modern magazine, either essentially feminine in its appeal or not, can safely be entrusted to a woman when one considers how largely executive is the nature of such a position, and how thoroughly sensitive the modern editor must be to the hundred and one practical business matters which today enter into and form so large a part of the editorial duties. ”

“ The most desired writer in the magazine office is the man who has something to say, and knows how to say it. Variety requires that there shall be many of these writers, and it is the editor’s business to ferret them out. ”

“ THE NEWSPAPER paragraphers were now having a delightful time with Edward Bok and his woman’s magazine, and he was having a delightful time with them. The editor’s publicity sense made him realize how valuable for his purposes was all this free advertising. The paragraphers believed, in their hearts, that they were annoying the young editor; they tried to draw his fire through their articles. ”

“ In conclusion, let it be remembered that not only the Northern magazines are not so directly interested in these matters as are we, but also that when one wishes to make a suggestion to his own section he naturally prefers to do so through a publication in that section.
Some of our newspapers have done creditable work through their editorial columns, but an editor cannot be a specialist in everything. We need, I think, a publication of the nature of a magazine whose editors know what to solicit and can determine whether or not a contribution meets a need. ”

“ To solicit contributions would have seemed an entirely undignified proceeding; in all cases contributors must come to him. According to Page, however, "an editor must know men and be out among men." His system of "making up" the magazine at first somewhat astounded his associates. A month or two in advance of publication day he would draw up his table of contents. ”

“ It is a well-known fact among successful magazine editors that their most striking successes have been made by material to which unknown names were attached, where the material was fresh, the approach new, the note different. That is what builds up a magazine; the reader learns to have confidence in what he finds in the periodical, whether it bears a famous name or not. ”

“ And unless the editor is the kind of man who is brave enough to stick for his ideals, regardless of his job, there must be much vacillation, with a consequent loss of valuable material and a depreciation in the reading value of the magazine. ”

“ Second, feature articles on local topics, the material for which is right at the amateur's hand, are sought by most newspapers. Third, newspaper editors are generally less critical of form and style than are magazine editors. With some practice an inexperienced writer may acquire sufficient skill to prepare an acceptable special feature story for publication in a local paper, and even if he is paid little or nothing for it, he will gain experience from seeing his work in print. ”

“ Another effort of this same unfortunate he protested tearfully that he could not recognize in its printed form except by the strawberry mark, that is, the signature; and he said he wished the editor had revised that, too, while he was about it.
What is an editor? Is he omniscient? We know better. Are all the articles in his magazine supposed to bear the imprint of his ideas and style? ”

“ At times such journals as the Knickerbocker and Graham's, and even others less successful, boasted lists of contributors quite as distinguished as those which most later magazines have been able to show. It is true that in the last sixty years there has been great development in the arts of magazine editorship and of magazine authorship—the writing of articles especially adapted for publication in a periodical. ”