During the Depression, my father supported himself partly by running a lending library out of his home (5 cents a day for a book) and partly by writing dime novels (these were in addition to his day job, which was running an ad agency with his first wife.)

He churned out a novel every weekend, turned it in to the publisher on Monday, and got a check for $10 on Friday. The publisher had a whole string of "authors" under whose names he published the books. The only credit my father ever received for the books was his name on the check, and no one in the family has the least clue of how many he wrote, what the titles were, or anything more than the above. This is another reason to interview family members to find out interesting things about them. I never knew this about my father until after he died, taking all the knowledge of the books with him.

While writing the last paragraph, I was reminded of one of my pet peeves, one which I don't think has been touched upon: the use of into where in to is required. Had I written "he ... turned it into the publisher" that would have meant a magical transformation of the manuscript to become the physicality of the publisher. And while Rem was good, he weren't THAT good!

TEd


TEd