Secrets of An Author

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 44, 22 February 1938, Page 2

Secrets of An Author

An author gets too big a “rake-off” on a novel, says charming, efficient Ann Bridge, whose first novel “Peking Picnic,” won the Atlantic Monthly prize of £2OOO. This is how she categorises the distribution of income from a novel; Author’s share, “Too big”; agent’s share, * ’Quite enough”; bookseller’s share, “None too big”; publisher’s share, “I cannot think how they live.” She exposed the arguments advanced in favour of the author—that he risked indispensable capital, put his brain into his work, his experience, and a lot of time. ‘ * You can give him his brain for what it is worth,” she told a large audience at the last day of a book fair in London. “He would have had the experience whether he wrote a book or not, and writing is not a whole time business. I love people to pretend this.” She confessed that she wrote her first novel before breakfast every day and followed with a full day’s work in her own sphere. She openly admitted the extent of her “indispensable capital”: A monster fountain pen which required infrequent refilling—£4 4s; a cubic foot of manuscript paper, 15s 9d; ink, 3s; a small dispatch case, £5 ss—“and it has lasted twelve years.” Whereas the publisher, who risked losing on a book he decided to publish, received only sixpence at the best or threepence at the worst on any profit on a 7s 6d novel, the author got a clear 5 per cent. “I do not think it is fair,” Ann Bridge (who is Mrs Owen S. O’Malley in private life) frankly declared, laughingly adding: “But I shall go on taking my share so long as my publisher gives it to me.”