a good price from _Collier's_.
Your article on the Prairie Poets might be rejected by three other
weeklies, but prove quite acceptable to _The Outlook_.

When you have completed a manuscript, forget the inspiration that went
into its writing and give cold and sober second thought to this matter
of marketing. _The Outlook_ might have bought the article that
_Collier's_ rejected. _Collier's_ might have bought the one that _The
Outlook_ rejected. Every experienced writer will tell you that this sort
of thing happens every day.

Don't snort in disdain because the editor of _The Ladies' Home Journal_
rejects a contribution on economics. Maybe the lady's husband would like
it. So try it on _The World's Work_, or _Leslie's_ or _System_. It might
win you a place of honor, with your name blazoned on the cover.

Too many discouraged novices believe that the bromide of the rejection
slip--"rejection implies no lack of merit"--is simply a piece of
sarcasm. It is nothing of the sort. In tens of thousands of instances it
is a solemn fact. Don't sulk and berate the editors who return your
manuscript, but carefully read the contribution again, trying to forget
for the moment that it is one of your own precious "brain children."
Cold-bloodedly size it up as something to sell. Then you may perceive
that you have been trying to market a crate of eggs at a shoe store.
Eggs are none the less precious on that account. Try again--applying
this time to a grocer. If he doesn't buy, it will be because he already
has all the eggs on hand that he needs. In that event, look up the
addresses of some more grocers.

The same common sense principles apply in selling manuscripts to the
magazines and newspapers as in marketing any other kind of produce. The
top prices go to the fellow who delivers his goods fresh and in good
order to buyers who stand in need of his particular sort of staple.
Composing a manuscript may be art, but selling it is business.

Naturally, it requires practice to become expert in picking topics of
wide enough appeal to interest the public which reads magazines of
national circulation. Every beginner, except an inspired genius, is
likely to be oppressed with a sense of hopelessness when he is making
his first desperate attempts to "break in." The writer can testify
feelingly on this point from his own experience. Kansas City was then my
base of operations, and it seemed as if I never possibly could find
anything in that far