or so in one week, and for several weeks afterward average something like
$14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider that he has 'arrived' when
he has sold one story, or even several; it may be a year before he places
another. And the future of a writer who may be having a very fair success
now is not any too secure. Public taste changes. New orders come in. The
kind of thing which took so well yesterday may be quite out of fashion
tomorrow.

"There is among people generally much misconception as to the profits
ordinarily derived by the author from the publication of a book. The price
of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually the author receives a
royalty of about fifteen cents a copy on the first two thousand copies
sold, and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. A novel which sold
upward of 50,000 copies would bring the author something like $10,000.
Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year's work at some other business
or profession than authorship. But authors who make that amount in a year,
or anything near that amount, are exceedingly rare. A book is regarded by
the publisher as highly successful if it sells from five to ten thousand
copies. Far and away the greater number of books published do not sell as
many as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published book, which
received a very cordial 'press,' has had an uncommon amount of publicity,
and the advertisements of which announce that it is in its 'fourth
printing,' has, after about half a year, earned for its author perhaps
$1,000. Its sale now in active measure is over. An author is fairly
fortunate who receives as much as $500 or $600 from the sale of his book.
I recall an excellent story published something over a year ago which was
much praised by many reviewers. It took the author probably the better
part of a year to write it. He was then six months or more getting it
accepted. He has not been able to place much of anything since. At the
end, then, of two years and a half he has received from his literary
labors about $110."

Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the usefulness of _Writing as a
Business_ by the addition of very complete bibliographies.

_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, by Sidney
Farnsworth, has nothing to do with street or indoor lighting but has a
great deal to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. Mr.
Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination from its birth, showing, by
mea