Writers and Newspapers

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17607, 24 October 1931, Page 13

Writers and Newspapers

REITERS, especially novelists and ippets-j w;b,o complain.of lack ,of encouragementJijQin newspapers, wouhj, do well "to’jC’on t sider ‘the tlgur.es complied'' by , ,publ|shihg houses, states th.e Toronto .Mail apd Empire.' Mr. John Macrae,, : juu., 'of the firjn of E. P. Diittoii and. Co. v New York v ;. states -that 1 ;'out" '.ojf perhaps 300,000 manuscripts 1 and foreign •'books submitted annually to all the publishers of the United States, only about 10,000 are published. Out of these 10,000 only about one in 50 survives more than two years. If Only one in 50 books'actually published shows any signs of survival how- .bad must , .be the other 49’ And what can be said of the thousands of manuscripts which were rejected? Conditions, comparatively, are much the same in Canada. Publishers are in the business to make at least a reasonable profit but notwithstanding all their experience of public taste they often make a “bloomer.” If they accepted everything that comes along they would soon be in bankruptcy. So also newspapers must have some consideration for their readers. If they accepted even a tithe of the stuff offered to them they would soou find their public in rebellion.