Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1891 — Authors Who Write Too Much. [ARTICLE]

Authors Who Write Too Much.

This idea of “keeping before the public” is a good one. in the mam* writes Edward W. Bok in the Ladies' Home Journal, but it must be done judiciously and by good work. Just here is where nine authors in every teD fail. They think their quality is good, but unconsciously it has become quantity instead. Unwittingly, they are training their public, whose eye* they caught with some early or striking piece of work, to be perfectly ready tc drop them the moment a new star appears upon the literary horizon. Few authors of recent date made so pronounced and instantaneous success as Budyard Kipling, but the public hardly had time to catch its breath after his first story, than along came a second story, a third, and so it has gone on until six of his books are now on the market, and a series of injurious newspaper articles in addition—all within one year. The result is that the best judges agree that Kipling is overdoing it. “Oh, we are having too much of Kipling,” is the general opinion. In consequence, the sales of his books are dropping off, and the name of Budyard Kipling is losing its magic. The simple fact is, that the great gospel of moderation applies to literature as it does to everything else. And, looking at it from a financial standpoint, this moderation pays. A good author who writes only one story in a year, ofttimes receives more for that Bingle piece of work than does he who ■writes five or six novels during the same period. No matter how clever an author may be, how well he writes, he cannot afford to overfeed his public. The literary public like 3 its daintiest desserts in small doses, and then, as in everything else, there is created aq appetite for more.