hat new note is his success with his readers. A successful magazine is
exactly like a successful store: it must keep its wares constantly fresh
and varied to attract the eye and hold the patronage of its customers.

With an editor ever alive to the new message, the new note, the fresh
way of saying a thing, the new angle on a current subject, whether in
article or story--since fiction is really to-day only a reflection of
modern thought--the foolish notion that an editor must be approached
through "influence," by a letter of introduction from some friend or
other author, falls of itself. There is no more powerful lever to open
the modern magazine door than a postage-stamp on an envelope containing
a manuscript that says something. No influence is needed to bring that
manuscript to the editor's desk or to his attention. That he will
receive it the sender need not for a moment doubt; his mail is too
closely scanned for that very envelope.

The most successful authors have "broken into" the magazines very often
without even a letter accompanying their first manuscript. The name and
address in the right-hand corner of the first page; some "return" stamps
in the left corner, and all that the editor requires is there. 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.

Despite all the rubbish written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the
magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more
carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the
standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript
unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it was
least expected.

This does not mean that every manuscript received by a magazine is read
from first page to last. There is no reason why it should be, any more
than that all of a bad egg should be eaten to prove that it is bad. The
title alone sometimes decides the fate of a manuscript. If the subject
discussed is entirely foreign to the aims of the magazine, it is simply
a case of misapplication on the author's part; and it would be a waste
of time for the editor to read something which he k