Authors' Gains.
The C 3,750 paid Mvs Hodbon Burnett for her now novel is really noither extraordinary nor excessive assuming that for this sum the publishers become absoluto proprietors of the copyright. I happen to know that not so long ago Miss Florence Warden (who is, vulgarly speaking, much "smaller potatoes" than Mrs Burnett) asked and obtained £5,000 trom Messrs Ward and Downey for " Scheherazade." Miss Braddon got £2,000 from Messrs Leng, of the Sheffield "Telegraph," for the serial rights only of "Like and Unlike," after which tho copyright reverted to her, and tho book was published first in three volumes and then in the popular 2s form. Out of the rights, therefore, she probably made quite £4,000. Of course a publisher luns considerable risk buying an author's book straight out like Scribners' are doing Mrs Burnetts, and tho arrangement is not often made now-a-days. W aid and Downey must have lost a luz'gosum over " Scheherazade," On tho othor hand, if this now story of Mrs Burnetts should provo at all equal to " Little Lord Faunfcloroy " or "Through One Administration" £3,750 will be cheap far it.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TAN18890112.2.34
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Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 333, 12 January 1889, Page 5
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186Authors' Gains. Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 333, 12 January 1889, Page 5
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