ope, turn it with the open side down, so as to avoid
having the flap cut when the outer envelope is opened with a paper
knife.

Attach the full amount of postage to _both_ envelopes; never enclose
loose stamps--and _never_ forget to stamp the inner envelope if you
wish to get your manuscript back in case of rejection. At this writing
(February, 1919), a three-cent stamp will bring it back to you, but
you will have to pay whatever else is due before receiving the letter;
and if the story sells, and you receive nothing but the check, you
will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have not been stingily
economical in sending it out.

See that your name and address are on the upper left-hand corner of
the going envelope; be sure, too, that the return envelope is properly
self-addressed.

We should not advise the young writer to put the price demanded for
his script in the upper right-hand corner of the first sheet, though
this is where it should go if he does wish to stipulate the amount for
which he will sell it. It is very much better simply to write:
"Submitted at usual rates." Even after you have sold to a given
company, it is better, as a rule, to leave the matter of payment to
the editor. You may be sure that he will pay you just as much as your
story is worth, being governed only by the price-limit fixed by the
manufacturer. Today, almost every manufacturer realizes that the day
of getting "something for nothing" is past. In other words, he
realizes that the script--the story--is the very keystone of the
photoplay arch, and if the story is purchased from a free-lance
writer, he must be prepared to pay a fair price for it.

It is impossible, in a work of this kind, to say what certain
companies are in the habit of paying, but it may roughly be said that
the minimum price _per reel_ today is $50. Most of the larger
producing companies are glad to pay a minimum of $100 per reel for
satisfactory material, and $1,000 for a five-reel script--or even for
a five-reel story in synopsis form, if that is the company's
policy--is regularly paid by those who are entitled to be called "the
leading producers." Most companies have a fixed, uniform price-scale;
and it would be silly for any one to say that you will be paid a
certain amount for your story "if it suits them." We have in mind a
certain large company that is in the habit of paying $1,000 for all
the five-reel synopses it purchases. If your story is not what this