"Well," he said, "I'll tell you. This girl of mine reads pretty trashy
stuff, and she knows about all the cheap novels there are. She dotes on
'The Duchess,' and puts her last dime into Braddon. She knows them all
by heart. Have you ever read 'Lady Audley's Secret'?"
"I see," I said. "One is a sequel to the other."
"No," said Mr. Gilkowsky. "One is the other. Some one has flim-flammed
you and sold you a typewritten copy of 'Lady Audley's Secret' as a new
novel."
V
When I told Perkins he merely remarked that he thought every publishing
house ought to have some one in it who knew something about books, apart
from the advertising end, although that was, of course, the most
important. He said we might go ahead and publish "Lady Audley's Secret"
under the title of "The Crimson Cord," as such things had been done
before, but the best thing to do would be to charge Rosa Belle Vincent's
thousand dollars to Profit and Loss and hustle for another
novel--something reliable and not shop-worn.
Perkins had been studying the literature market a little and he advised
me to get something from Indiana this time, so I telegraphed an
advertisement to the Indianapolis papers and two days later we had
ninety-eight historical novels by Indiana authors from which to choose.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
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