The Lester Dent Guide to Pulp Fiction

[thebitterguy]

A step by step guide to 3 cents a word.

Of course, that was in the thirties.

Via doghousereilly who got it from someone else.

edit: Annotation by doc_mystery:
Dent's essay first appeared in Writer's Digest Yearbook back in under the title, "The Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot".

He has another famous essay called "Wave Those Tags" which appeared in the above periodical in 1940. This essay details his formula to create interesting characters to put in those stories.

His initial essay has been variously reprinted, but I've only found the above paired in Marilyn Cannaday's biography of Dent, "Bigger Than Life: the creator of Doc Savage", published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press, in 1990.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

And I've been overjoyed on those occasions when I've made twice that amount per word 70+ years later - that's deeply sad.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

H.P. Lovecraft made a penny a word when he wrote "Dagon" in 1918.

Mongoose pays a penny a word in 2005.

Progress!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I've often said that the true heirs of the old pulp writers of the 20s-50s are RPG writers - heck I was even once offered a chance to write a project for Ars Magica, based on an existing piece of cover art, just like writers for the old magazines. I just wish my per word payment wasn't so similar to theirs.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Dent's essay first appeared in Writer's Digest Yearbook back in under the title, "The Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot".

He has another famous essay called "Wave Those Tags" which appeared in the above periodical in 1946. This essay details his formula to create interesting characters to put in those stories.

His initial essay has been variously reprinted, but I've only found the above paired in Marilyn Cannaday's biography of Dent, "Bigger Than Life: the creator of Doc Savage", published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press, in 1990.

::B::

P.S. Incidently, my only commercially published gaming material, an article about the pulps serialized in the now defunct magazine, The Familiar also only paid me about a penny a word.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Whoops! "Wave Those Tags" was published in 1940. Mea culpa.

::B::