etters that he writes in an average
month. It takes him longer to write a long than a short letter, but
routine letters will average fairly over a period of a month. But an
executive who writes only letters that cannot be written by
correspondents or lower salaried men commonly does so many other things
in the course of a day that although his average time of dictation per
letter may be ascertained and a cost gotten at, the figure will not be a
true cost, for the dictation of an important letter comes only after a
consideration of the subject matter which commonly takes much longer
than the actual dictation. And then, again, the higher executive is
usually an erratic letter writer--he may take two minutes or twenty
minutes over an ordinary ten-line letter. Some men read their letters
very carefully after transcription. The cost of this must also be
reckoned in.

The cost of any letter is therefore a matter of the particular office.
It will vary from six or seven cents for a letter made up of form
paragraphs to three or four dollars for a letter written by a
high-salaried president of a large corporation. A fair average cost for
a personally dictated letter written on good paper is computed by one of
the leading paper manufacturers, after a considerable survey to be:

Postage .0200
Printing letterheads and envelopes .0062
Stenographic wages (50 letters per
day, $20.00 per week) .0727
Office overhead .0727
Paper and envelopes .0054
------
$.1770

The above does not include the expense of dictation.

It will pay any man who writes a considerable number of letters to
discover what his costs are--and then make his letters so effective that
there will be fewer of them.

CHAPTER XIII

STATIONERY, CRESTS AND MONOGRAMS

SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE

For all social correspondence use plain sheets of paper, without lines,
of white or cream, or perhaps light gray or a very dull blue. But white
or cream is the safest. Select a good quality. Either a smooth vellum
finish or a rough linen finish is correct. For long letters there is the
large sheet, about five by six and one half inches, or it may be even
larger. There is a somewhat smaller size, about four and one half by
five and one half or six inches for formal notes, and a st