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Fanfare, v. 2, issue 1, whole no. 7, August 1941
Page 13
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fanfare xiii SLAN:DER er? Writers are business men; they have a really amazing disinclination to starve to death most romantically in a garret for their "art." Being human, they want money, and they don't want to have to exert themselves too much to get it. There are now approximately 20 science fiction and fantasy magazines on the stands. Of this number, one is a reprint, leaving only 7 paying the cent-a-word rate. To crash these seven magazines a writer will have to slant until he falls over backward, as Jenkins expresses it. If he writes a story for Astounding and it flops, then his chances of selling it elsewhere are practically nil; even if he re-writes the whole damn thing. The same thing applies if he writes a tale for Amazing, for Planet, for Comet. On the other hand, if he wrote a tale for Detective Story, it would be unlikely to be rejected if the gentleman is a professional, and even if it were rejected, he has an excellent chance of getting rid of it wlsewhere. Ditto the western pulps, and ditto every other single pulp, except the science and fantasy group. No skilled and really excellent pulp-writer wants to fool around with such goings-on. As a result he'll write a tale for the stf mags only on occasion, and even then he won't dare to put much time or effort on it. Which partly explains the influx of new writers from the fan field into the pro. The new writers will take that half-cent a word and be darn glad to get it. And the small number who can really write can be depended upon to buckle down and turn out superior stuff consistently---something no million-word-a-year man can ever do. It also partly explains the large number of very bad writers in a number of recent pros. They dash out tripe at top speed and in reams; knowing just how well they can write to get by, and think of production and production only---men like Kummer and Hamilton and Winterbotham. Not even the kids who read that slop can stand it for long: witness the almost complete disappearance of Kummer from the pro mags of late. Amazing no longer uses him, Astounding dropped him after one story, and even Thrilling Wonder was forced to let him go. He doesn't appear in Super Science or Astonishing any more, Coment won't use him, and that paragon of lousy pulpishness, Science-Fiction, rejects him. Even junior, it seems, has a limit tp what he can swallow. The really smart promag editors, such as Campbell, Miss Gnaedinger, Miss MacIlwraith, Pohl, and Wollheim, have stopped chasing the illusionary will-o'-the-wisp that is the caprice of the average pulp reader---a fellow with the colossally minute intellect of a backward termite---and have built their magazines upon a solid foundation; that of the more mature quality readers. Pohl made the brightest move of all in starting a science-fiction novel magazine; something that set his pub off and made the average reader buy it, when he ordinarily would have saved his money for something else. Blish, Wollheim, Lowndes, Pohl, and the combination of these four; Tnompson, Guttesman, Gregor, Basil Wells, Asimov, Kubilius, Chapman, knight, Wilson, Saari, Ackerman---all these have crashed, and more, and still they continue to come. The Foudurians have already made writing their means of livelihood; it is not unlikely that when the crash comes and disintegrates all the promags depending on the deserting pro writers, the remaining ones will be former fans like you and I. No---it is not merely unlikely, it is in fact, very nearly inevitable. And perhaps---just perhaps---this business of living will become for you and I "--too much with us," and our dreams will fade like pretty shining bubbles in the heat of a desert sun, and reality will make writing a bare, bitter thing; a way of making a living only, and then perhaps, good friend, you and I will be the Hamiltons and Kummers
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fanfare xiii SLAN:DER er? Writers are business men; they have a really amazing disinclination to starve to death most romantically in a garret for their "art." Being human, they want money, and they don't want to have to exert themselves too much to get it. There are now approximately 20 science fiction and fantasy magazines on the stands. Of this number, one is a reprint, leaving only 7 paying the cent-a-word rate. To crash these seven magazines a writer will have to slant until he falls over backward, as Jenkins expresses it. If he writes a story for Astounding and it flops, then his chances of selling it elsewhere are practically nil; even if he re-writes the whole damn thing. The same thing applies if he writes a tale for Amazing, for Planet, for Comet. On the other hand, if he wrote a tale for Detective Story, it would be unlikely to be rejected if the gentleman is a professional, and even if it were rejected, he has an excellent chance of getting rid of it wlsewhere. Ditto the western pulps, and ditto every other single pulp, except the science and fantasy group. No skilled and really excellent pulp-writer wants to fool around with such goings-on. As a result he'll write a tale for the stf mags only on occasion, and even then he won't dare to put much time or effort on it. Which partly explains the influx of new writers from the fan field into the pro. The new writers will take that half-cent a word and be darn glad to get it. And the small number who can really write can be depended upon to buckle down and turn out superior stuff consistently---something no million-word-a-year man can ever do. It also partly explains the large number of very bad writers in a number of recent pros. They dash out tripe at top speed and in reams; knowing just how well they can write to get by, and think of production and production only---men like Kummer and Hamilton and Winterbotham. Not even the kids who read that slop can stand it for long: witness the almost complete disappearance of Kummer from the pro mags of late. Amazing no longer uses him, Astounding dropped him after one story, and even Thrilling Wonder was forced to let him go. He doesn't appear in Super Science or Astonishing any more, Coment won't use him, and that paragon of lousy pulpishness, Science-Fiction, rejects him. Even junior, it seems, has a limit tp what he can swallow. The really smart promag editors, such as Campbell, Miss Gnaedinger, Miss MacIlwraith, Pohl, and Wollheim, have stopped chasing the illusionary will-o'-the-wisp that is the caprice of the average pulp reader---a fellow with the colossally minute intellect of a backward termite---and have built their magazines upon a solid foundation; that of the more mature quality readers. Pohl made the brightest move of all in starting a science-fiction novel magazine; something that set his pub off and made the average reader buy it, when he ordinarily would have saved his money for something else. Blish, Wollheim, Lowndes, Pohl, and the combination of these four; Tnompson, Guttesman, Gregor, Basil Wells, Asimov, Kubilius, Chapman, knight, Wilson, Saari, Ackerman---all these have crashed, and more, and still they continue to come. The Foudurians have already made writing their means of livelihood; it is not unlikely that when the crash comes and disintegrates all the promags depending on the deserting pro writers, the remaining ones will be former fans like you and I. No---it is not merely unlikely, it is in fact, very nearly inevitable. And perhaps---just perhaps---this business of living will become for you and I "--too much with us," and our dreams will fade like pretty shining bubbles in the heat of a desert sun, and reality will make writing a bare, bitter thing; a way of making a living only, and then perhaps, good friend, you and I will be the Hamiltons and Kummers
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