several other names as well. Mr. George Barr McCutcheon, if his last book did not quite reach the 100,000 mark, has written books in the past that did, and undoubtedly will in the future. Mr. Vaughan Kester's "Prodigal Judge" and the books of Mr. Basil King (generally recognized as the anonymous author of "The Inner Shrine," "The Street Called Straight," and "The Wild Olive") sold within a few thousands of the round figure taken arbitrarily for the standard of this article. Nor does this exhaust the list of writers whose books belong in this

MRS. KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
AUTHOR OF "MARY CARY"

class. But at least it is a definite record of one particular period and has the one merit of being founded on concrete facts of the success of those who have best succeeded in pleasing the public's taste in the last three years. And it is about such a list of authors of 100,000-selling books as any average three years would produce.

These thirteen authors, divided as equally as may be between men and women, are fair samples of the successful writers of fiction. They are not of a single type.

They are as different and they come from as different environments as successful railroad men, or Presidents of the United States, or any other successful people. They live all over the United States, from Cornish, N. H., to Southern California, and two of them live outside our boundaries - the Reverend Charles W. Gordon (Ralph Connor) in Winnipeg, British Columbia, and Mrs. Barclay in England. Only one of the thirteen, Mrs. Gene Stratton-Porter, was born or lives in Indiana, usually hailed the mother of authors as Virginia is of Presidents.

"MYRTLE REED" AUTHOR OF "A WEAVER OF DREAMS"

Their formal education also varies. Some of them had very little of it. They are self-made authors as so many of our business leaders are self-made men. Mrs. McCullough (Myrtle Reed) attended the West Division High School in Chicago. Mr. Robert W. Chambers was a student in the Julien Academy in Paris, Mr. Winston Churchill graduated from the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis. None of these schools is particularly adapted to the training of American nov

MRS. FLORENCE L. BARCLAY AUTHOR OF "THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR"

MR. ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AUTHOR OF "THE COMMON LAW"

"

personal effort without office force, factory, or shop. Not counting the income from serialization of the books in magazines, or their sale in reprint editions, the author of a nove! that sells 100,000 copies receives in royalties from that sale about $25,000. The retail price of these books ranges from $1 for a small book like "Molly Make Believe" to $1.50 for a large novel such as Winston Churchill's "A Modern Chronicle." Authors' royalties usually vary from 10 to 20 per cent. of the retail price of the book. Naturally the

successful authors demand the highest royalties. The minimum money return from the writing of a novel of a 100,000 sale is about $25,000, and occasionally there comes along a book with a larger sale on which the royalties amount to as much as $75,000.

For a 100,000 sale of the average novel, for which the author receives approximately $25,000, the public pays about $135,000. The retail bookseller takes about $42,500 for his service in getting the book into the hands of the public. The publisher spends another $25,000 getting the books into the hands of the bookseller, and in creating a demand for them by advertising. That leaves to the publisher, for the expenses of manufacture and for his profit, about $42,500. In other words, when a reader pays $1.35 for a novel he pays just half the price for the publisher's and bookseller's effort in making him buy it. This rough approximation would not hold true in books of a small sale, for the original cost of setting them in type and making plates to print them from would make the cost of manufacture much higher. These inexorable figures explain why publishers print so small a proportion (perhaps two in a hundred) of the books that are offered to them. The public, however, often feels that even more restriction would not be amiss.

More interesting than the financial side of the publication of these books is the individual history of some of these profitable, much read, enjoyed, and maligned "best sellers." Six of the thirteen authors on this list had established themselves before 1910. Margaret Deland, Myrtle Reed, Rex Beach, Robert W. Chambers, Winston Churchill, and Ralph Connor each had a public of a 100,000 book buyers ready to receive their work. It was not entirely the same public. There were more sentimentalists in Myrtle Reed's public, and more thoughtful persons in Mrs. Deland's, or at least, if the same people enjoyed the books of both authors, they enjoyed them on somewhat different sides of their natures. Winston Churchill's historical and political novels probably appeal to the same public that enjoys the fresh and adventurous out-door stories of Rex

Beach and Ralph Connor. It is probably a little different public that purchases the books of Robert W. Chambers. But, however different or identical their publics were, these authors all had their set of 100,000 readers before 1910. The other seven on the list have come into particular prominence in the last three years.

In the latter part of 1909 there appeared on the list of G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers, "The Rosary," by Florence L. Barclay. In the book trade that announcement caused no particular interest, nor did it mean much to the public. The publishers had no extraordinary hopes for the book, and probably even the author in her most sanguine moments never expected it to sell 100,000 copies. The booksellers did not expect a great public demand, . either. The ninety and nine books that start that way, if fairly successful, sell perhaps 4,000, less likely 8,000, and stop there. But "The Rosary," though it started slowly, sold itself, created its own demand by the mouth to mouth recommendations of its readers, and this demand. grew faster than the publishers could supply it, for its increasing sale constantly surprised them. It had itself caught the public fancy and, after that, the booksellers and the publishers helped it to continue its success until now it has sold nearly 500,000 copies, exclusive of cheap editions, for as yet none have been issued.

The next book which Mrs. Barclay wrote, "The Following of the Star," published during 1910, has sold nearly 200,000 copies, though it did not equal the phenomenal record of "The Rosary." Since then she has had published three other books: "The Mistress of Shenstone," "Through the Postern Gate," and "The Upas Tree." She is almost as prolific as her books are popular.

Mrs. Porter, whose novel, "The Harvester," published in 1910, has sold more than 250,000 copies, caught the public imagination with her writing in a way not altogether unlike Mrs. Barclay. Her publishers, believing in the destined popularity of her first big success, "Freckles," used every possible means to get the book stores to buy it generously. The book stores responded generously but the pub

lic did not. It seemed as if the public would never absorb even the first 10,000 copies which the publishers' enthusiasm. had induced the book stores to buy. Some of the stores began "unloading" their stock at reduced prices. About this time the publishers agreed with the reprint publishers, Grosset & Dunlap, to put a 50-cent edition in their hands. In this form "Freckles" got its real start, and it soon became so popular that the regular trade edition sold much more than enough to justify the publishers' original enthusiasm. The success of this and the following book, "The Girl of the Limberlost," gave Mrs. Porter such a measure of popularity that "The Harvester" sold 100,000 copies in four months.

Mr. Henry Sydnor Harrison's "Queed," perhaps the most notable success of 1912, is a first book. Mr. Harrison had spent infinite time and labor on it. He submitted it to a New York publisher who liked the book but suggested that it be shortened. Mr. Harrison then sent it to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., where it came into the hands of Mr. Ferris Greenslet. He boldly announced to his associates that he had a "find," a book of imagination and good workmanship that would catch the popular fancy.

This spontaneous enthusiam of Mr. Greenslet's carried conviction to the selling organization of the house, and "Queed" entirely fulfilled Mr. Greenslet's prophecy. It was literally a book in a thousand, for thousands of manuscripts of novels go to publishers every year. Perhaps two in every hundred are published. Of those that are published, by no means half sell 10,000 copies. Not one in a thousand of new authors' books sell 100,000 copies.

Mr. Jeffery Farnol, the author of "The Broad Highway," had written a half dozen books before this one, but they had not been extraordinarily successful. On the contrary, there was a book manuscript of his resting in another publisher's safe at the time that Little, Brown & Co. brought out "The Broad "The Broad Highway," which merrily went its way among the "best sellers."

"The Broad Highway,"

"Queed," "Queed,"

"The Silver Horde," "The Iron Woman," "A Modern Chronicle," and the rest all these books were helped into popularity by advertising. But none of them, probably no two of them together, had as much advertising as "The Winning of Barbara Worth." The Book Supply Company, which published it, publishes practically no fiction except the books of Harold Bell Wright. Three or four of them had demonstrated their popularity. When "The Winning of Barbara Worth" came up for publication the company decided to make it not only a success but a tremendous success. It was advertised upon a more lavish scale than was ever seen before, and it sold more than any other novel of this three-year period. Whether the extra sale paid the publisher and author for the cost of stimulating it no one can tell accurately, for it is impossible to know what the sale would have been had the advertising been only of the normal amount. The extra-advertising plan has been tried with many other books without success. In the case of "The Winning of Barbara Worth," however, one thing is very certain. The headway which the book gained in popular favor in the edition in which it was originally published insures it another great sale in a cheaper reprint edition; and the sale of books in reprint editions has a much larger significance than is usually accorded it.

"Mary Carey," by Mrs. Kate Langley Bosher, and "Molly Make-Believe," by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, both small books, were also the first books of these authors, although Mrs. Coburn (Eleanor Hallowell Abbott) had an enviable reputation as a short story writer before this book appeared.

Many of the literary critics, after the fashion of the one quoted by Mr. Brett at the beginning of this article, scoff at these books, belittle their literary qualities, and predict for them a sure decline to oblivion. It is a safe enough prediction about any particular book, because books that last in English literature come so infrequently that they would make up only a negligible proportion of the lists of books that are popular with the public against critical advice, or of those which