Page:Oregon Exchanges volume 5.pdf/18

OREGON EXCHANGES wouldn’t grow stale. They telegraphed acceptance and information that check was going out in the mail to cover. Then I wrote the Pacific Coast Merchant, and told them that it was sold, but I’d watch out for something else. They wrote back that even if it was sold I might rewrite it and send it to them anyway, that it was the usual thing in trade journal work. Of course they got the rewritten story with another set of prints by return mail, and incidentally I took the tip and sold the story in various forms to three or four other journals, in widely separated East ern cities. The Des Moines paper paid me $20, the Pacific Coast Merchant $15, another paper $15, one $8, one $3, and I forget the other amounts. At any rate the total receipts in cash resulting from the hour’s interview netted close to $75. This money, straggling in a check at a time, was about three months in accumulating its grand total.

You can readily see why I forsook the juvenile story opportunity, with two acceptances out of about fifteen or twenty tries, against this almost certain market for my work. I began to keep my eyes open for retail stores that showed un usual pep in their methods of publicity, displays, etc. Sandy’s was one of them, Sandy was a gold mine to interview, brimming over with originality, and so much material available, that one just had to scoop off the cream and write it up. Sandy’s story brought me $20, right off the bat, with requests for more material. The Powers Furniture Co. made good material, and still is, with its huge advertising campaign, and efficient store system. The first story on Powers brought $20 from a furniture journal, and since then I have sold revisions of the same story in three other places for from $8 to $15 each.

One will wonder how I managed to interview these people, when I worked all day in the office. My office hours were from 8:30 till 5; it was between 5 and 6 that I managed to grab my interviews. Everyone was very nice to me, when I explained that I was working during the day, and without exception they put them selves out to give me what information I wanted.

Up till the time I left my office work, (December, 1920) I confined my output to feature stories of progressive business houses and their methods, “success” stories, they might be called. I could not undertake regular correspondence, as I was unable to handle specific assignments under such conditions. I’m going to be as frank as I can, to give a real idea of what this work brings in, to any one who might be interested. Here are my cash receipts for my work, during the time that I was in the office, spare-time money, as it were: July, $26.18; August, $62.90; September, $88.75; October, $60.35; November, $89.00; December, $100.15.

Everybody thought I was a fool to contemplate giving up the office work, when I had such a rare opportunity to write on the boss’s time. I came to the decision that when my writing income equalled my salary I would let the office go, and take a chance. I asked the advice of a couple of editors, who were strongly against such a step. One of them said that $30 a month was the maximum amount of my work they could use. (Very recently for this paper, I did a piece of work that netted me $166.80 in a single issue!) I had been saving every cent that I made by writing, and decided that I would quit the office and live on my savings: by the time my money was gone if I did not make a go of it, I could always go back to stenography. You see, the item of a six year old son to look after made my position somewhat more risky than for one who is unencumbered.

I left the office at the end of December, and my receipts for January were $89.65; my income was cut almost in half, you see. February went up to $156.47 and March, a month of utmost concern, brought but $44.95. April ran around to $167.20, May $178.65, June $262.30, and July $206.67.