Keep up your output.  Do not write one story, send it out, and then wait patiently for its return, or for the editor’s check.  Plan a new story, write it, and send it out.  Then plan another and follow the same course.  Photoplay marketing is a business, and a business man is usually “on the job” six days a week.

It is best not to write a letter to the editor, to accompany your script, unless there is a very special reason for so doing.  Nor should the writer rush a letter of inquiry off in case he does not hear from the editor within a week or two after submitting his story.  Delay may be a hopeful sign.  If you hear nothing in two months it is time enough to write—­briefly and courteously.  Nearly all companies, however, will report well within that period.

It is utterly impossible in a work of this nature to include a list of the requirements of every photoplay editor.  The policy of the manufacturers is always subject to change.  Their requirements are governed by the number of scripts of each kind they have on hand, the disposal of their field-companies, the season of the year, the ability of their directors to turn out the various kinds of pictures, and also by individual preferences.

The way to keep posted on the current needs of the various companies is to study on the screen the pictures of the different producing firms; to read in the trade-journals the synopses of all the releases that you do not have the opportunity of witnessing; and to keep in touch with the announcements made by the manufacturers themselves in the weekly and monthly journals mentioned in Chapter XIV.

“Where and How to Sell Manuscripts,” by William B. McCourtie, issued by the publishers of this book ($2.50), contains a frequently revised list of over 5,000 markets for literary material of all sorts, including photoplays.

Keep a record of every script you send out.  Here is one simple form for a manuscript book or card index: 

-------------------------------------------------------

--------
Title | Sent to | Returned from | Date | Sold to | Date | Price
|         |               |      |         |      |
|         |               |      |         |      |
|         |               |      |         |      |

Do not let the printed rejection slip humiliate you.  Really great writers get them, constantly.  This statement is equally true of both fiction and photoplay writing.  It would take too much time and money for an editorial staff to write personal letters to all who offer unsolicited manuscript.

Never write petulant or sarcastic letters when your offerings are rejected.  You may need the good-will of that editor some day.  Although personal pique seldom actuates him, he may be frail enough to be annoyed when his well-meant efforts are assailed.

In conclusion, we urge the writer to remember the words of Dr. Johnson: 

“All the performances of human art at which we look with praise or wonder are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals.”