How to write Little Blue BooksLloyd E. SmithOmniClassics · Literature
How to write Little Blue Books
Lloyd E. SmithAn assistant editor explains exactly what a five-cent publishing series needs from its writers.
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About the book
Lloyd E. Smith addresses would-be contributors to the Little Blue Books from both sides of the editorial desk: he has written numerous volumes and prepared other people's manuscripts for publication. The series needs accessible instruction that can attract enough readers to remain economically viable. Private philosophical revelations, narrow dissertations, and cherished unpublished poems are therefore poor candidates, however much their authors value them. Smith connects the choice of subject with the less glamorous demands of length, typography, spelling, and preparation for the printer. His frank account makes a small book's physical and commercial limits part of the writing problem itself. Read as a document of popular publishing, the manual shows how a program of inexpensive self-education shaped the knowledge offered to a mass audience.
- Popular education
- Editorial judgment
- Writing as work
Why read it
Smith makes the economics and practical constraints behind an inexpensive book unusually visible.
English text of Little Blue Book No. 1366, copyright 1929