How to write Little Blue Books

Books , is, by rights, the editor’s—E. Haldeman-Julius’s—job. For he is the man who ultimately accepts the manuscript, if it is acceptable, and he signs the check which each author awaits with eager anticipation. But he says that going into the details of how manuscripts should be written for this ever growing series does not appeal to him. So far he has preferred to find and buy the product of those writers who are able, without more than a preliminary word or two, to turn out exactly what he wants. So he has delegated me to do the job for him, and he has charged me to be explicit, exhaustive, and extremely understandable. For editorial problems of the Little Blue Books are peculiar. There is no other series to be compared with The Little Blue Books. Certainly not in the English language, and similar series in foreign languages are not quite the same, and are, of course, not of interest to writers in English. E. Haldeman-Julius has told the complete story of ten years of publishing the Little Blue Books, from editing some two thousand manuscripts to the complete list of more than fourteen hundred titles in print as I write, in his book, The First Hundred Million . [1] The 100,000,000 refers to the total number of Little Blue Books printed and sold at the time the book was written. I urge every would-be Little Blue Book writer to get a copy of this book, if possible, and read it from cover to cover. Entirely aside from its technical interest, the book is thoroughly readable as a unique contribution to the psychology of the American reading public. [1] The First Hundred Million , by E. Haldeman-Julius, cloth bound, $3 postpaid, Haldeman-Julius Co., Girard, Kansas. As for my own qualifications to tell how Little Blue Books must be written, to be acceptable for publication in this world famous series, they are two. For more than three years I have been the Assistant Editor of the Haldeman-Julius Publications, and I have encountered at first hand the editorial and publishing problems peculiar to them. I have corresponded with many Little Blue Book writers; I have whipped many a manuscript into shape for the typesetters; I have scheduled thousands of Little Blue Books, in hundreds of large editions, for publication. My second qualification is that I am a Little Blue Book writer myself,…