Vol. XII

No. 2

ERE'S to the American magazine: founded on American ideas, upholding an American ideal, and built on an Ameri

can plan-as big as all outdoors; as forward as a spoiled child and as irrepressible as an American drummer; sometimes a little loud, but always wideawake and full of the go, the vim and the enterprise that make the world keep the pace the twentieth century demands.

It is a great and growing factor in American civilization; and while it may be true that arrant rot occasionally creeps into its pages; while it may be that it encourages desultory reading, the fact remains that it has done and is doing a work in education which no other single agency could accomplish.

Here's to it again: may it never grow thinner.

Are They Too Numerous?

It is barely possible that the gentlemen who affirm there are too many magazines are right-just as there are too many publications of every class,

from the two too many weeklies in the country hamlet which has no need of one, up to the too numerous dailies in most large cities.

Nevertheless it would be folly, were it possible, arbitrarily to throttle at birth the periodicals for which there seems to be no "long-felt want." Many an unpromising baby develops into a lively youngster and a vigorous man. Besides, the nature of the case rather calls for a struggle for the survival of the fittest. Without the infusion of new blood the old ones would either die of dry-rot or become too arrogant for peace of mind and happiness. Let them come on. Here's a tear for those who fall by the wayside and a God-bless-you for those who stick and win.

Advertising Rates.

Advertising rates-dear me, "ain't it funny what a difference" the point of view makes? A shrewd and clever advertiser writes to AGRICULTURAL ADVERTISING in this strain:

"If you are to have an issue of your valuable publication devoted exclusively to magazines, I devoutly hope that

you will have the sand and courage and grit and back-bone, and whatever else is needed, to prompt you to say openly and pointedly that, almost without exception, the magazines are asking too much money for their advertising space.

"I don't mind being called upon to pay the dividends of the publishing company-all the dividends; I don't object to paying handsomely for the privilege of having my business announcement carried about the country in company with immortal literature which the magazines almost always contain; but I do object, and object most strenuously, to paying the reader for the privilege of coming into his august presence.

"I am willing to pay the expenses of a trip to see a customer, but it's rubbing it in a little too hard to ask me to pay the prospective customer for the privilege of talking to him, and that's exactly what I am asked to do in every magazine which does not receive from its circulation department a sufficient amount of money to pay the cost of production.

"The publisher, in effect, says to the subscriber: 'Here's a fifty-cent magaazine; it cost half a dollar to produce it. I must have a half dollar, and more for it, to live; but you need pay me only a quarter for it, and I'll soak the advertiser for the other quarter, in addition to the legitimate charge for the space. He's so anxious to get at you that he'll donate a quarter of a dollar for the privilege-he's an easy mark, anyway.' That's the way the land lies, Mr. Editor, and if your back-bone is where it ought to be you'll say so."

Too Much Advertising.

To be sure; to be sure; but there's something to be said, mayhap, on 'tother side of the question. In spite of the laudable and strenuous endeavors of a multitude of advertising men, the great American public has not yet been educated to the point where it rises up with the sun and demands so many yards, or

columns or pages of advertising matter as the one indispensable requisite for a day's happiness. The general public, such as doctors, preachers, chiropodists. bookkeepers, walking delegates, brokers, bakers and racing book-makers, with the wives of their respective bosoms-all that lesser breed-really, you know, don't care a picayune whether their favorite journal contains a solitary ad or not; if anything, they'd prefer a little less bulk to their magazine.

So, then, if the good Methodist, for example, must have the magazine which he puts into the hands of his carefully nurtured family cluttered up with the announcements of dancing-taught-bymail, and play-actor schools and playing cards, and other such visible indications of the world, the flesh and the devil, why in the name of all that's just shouldn't his conscience have the salve of a reduced price for the magazine?

If the butcher must have advertisements of cereal foods thrust under his nose at the dinner table; if the doctor must see advertisements of proprietary remedies; if our aristocracy must see any mention of vulgar "business" at all, is it not only fair that a rebate of ten cents the copy be made them for outraged feelings? Ten cents the copy, or even twenty-five cents; it's a pitiful sum. Time was when hurt honor was healed only by the jingle of the golden guinea.

Moreover, my protesting friend, you must not forget that a large share of the cost of producing the modern magazine is occasioned by the advertising pages. The pulp mill trust makes some slight charge for the white paper occupied by the advertiser's artistic announcement; the pressmen's union and the feeders' union and the binder-ladies' union all have somewhat to say about the cost of production; and the extra pages occupied by advertisements add materially to this cost.

All the money spent in producing the modern magazine is not wasted on hack writers, nor Tom Lawson, nor illustrat

Probably, if we look into the case carefully, we will find that advertising rates, like most other things not ruled by a monopoly, are governed very largely by the law of supply and demand.

The publisher very likely charges all "the traffic will bear," but no more, else the volume of his advertising rapidly diminishes.

And, so long as advertisers find it profitable to send to selected lists of names expensive brochures, booklets, catalogues, house organs, and the like, the whole of whose "cost of production" they bear, publishers will not be greatly alarmed at the advertiser's discovery that he is paying a part of the actual expense of the magazine or paper.

At the same time it is not probable that there will be a further reduction in the price readers pay for standard periodicals; the tendency is in the other direction, and this is well for the advertiser.

For this reason:

So long as the publisher looks upon his circulation merely as a necessary expense a basis for advertising ratesthere exists an almost irrepressible tendency to boom circulation by every means possible-legitimate and otherwise.

And an inflated circulation is seldom paying circulation from the advertiser's ledger point of view.

The Creative Solicitor.

It's a mighty good thing for the young man who is turned loose on the business world in the intrest of a publication to know something about advertising. The more he knows, the better solicitor he will make, unless he happens to know -as, alas, too often is the case-too many things that are not so.

There are representatives in the field

who know advertising as thoroughly as it is possible for a man to know this branch of business; they have the ability to get down to the facts underlying a proposition and on these facts to build a campaign that will win; but, if you will notice right sharp, it is not these men of ability who blow into an advertiser's office and volunteer the information that his plan is all wrong, his advertisements "rotten," and the advertiser, himself, a chump. They have no offhand opinions, because they want to know the conditions back of a proposition before they make recommendations. When they do form an opinion, they advance it with due modesty, and it is worth listening to. But the cock-sure, rapid-fire, whirlwind solicitor-he is quite a different bird.

Advertising A Profession.

The professional advertising man— probably there is no such thing, because the advertising man made his advent too late in the world's development ever to gain a foothold among the so-called "learned professions"-in spite of the pose of some of the adepts in the mysteries of publicity, can never surround himself with the superstitions and mystery that set apart the early medicine man and priest, the air of which still hangs like an odor of sanctity about the learned professions. The advertising man who makes publicity his business is a plain, every-day business man doing an honest day's work for a day's wage, converting his dreams of possibilities into realities by hard thinking and careful planning.

But, aside from this, he can never rank as a professional man nor an artist, because of the limitations placed upon his growth and development by the hard nature of his calling. He must serve two masters-and that is fatal to the best work.

His two masters are the art he practices and the client he serves. He must not only plan a campaign that will win,