I previously shared the wisdom of Dr. J. Berg Esenwein in excerpts from his 1908 manual, Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story. (To revisit that advice, click on the tag below to see all eight installments.) But Esenwein clearly had more that he wanted to tell us, because he bothered to write a follow-up book in 1916, Writing for the Magazines.

“Magazine writing, it must constantly be reiterated, is both an art and a craft,” or so he wrote in his more recent book. “This volume is offered in a friendly spirit to all writers who need help in either the one or the other phase of authorship.”

I note that the previous owner of this copy looked at that advice with a jaundiced eye, because written by hand beneath the title is now the suggested subtitle, “or, How to be a Hack.” (See image at right.) Of course, perhaps being thought a hack was something devoutly to be wished 92 years ago!

Here are some rules Dr. J. Berg Esenwein would have you remember:

Don’t think of yourself as a poet, and don’t dress the part.

Don’t classify yourself as a member of any special school or group.

Don’t call your quarters a garret or a studio.

Don’t frequent exclusively the company of writers.

Don’t think of any class of work that you feel moved to do as either beneath you or above you.

Don’t complain of lack of appreciation. (In the long run no really good published work can escape appreciation.)

Don’t think you are entitled to any special rights, privileges, and immunities as a literary person, or have any more reason to consider your possible lack of fame as a grievance against the world than has any shipping-clerk or traveling salesman.

Don’t speak of poetic license or believe that there is any such thing.

Don’t have your book published at your expense by any house that makes a practice of publishing at the author’s expense.

Don’t write what everybody else is writing.

I find that next-to-last rule particularly amusing, since even today we’re still having to remind beginning writers of the fact that money flows toward the writer!