Hello,

what I am unable to make head or tail of is the fact why some of the authors (Ronal Kayser or H. F. Arnold) contributing to Weird Tales were not able to get much more popularity though their stories are very good; they wrote two or three great tales of suspense and terror and then vanished into thin air ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jan 14 | 02:25PM by Minicthulhu.

Part of the problem was that Weird Tales was published on a shoestring and not only paid very low rates per word but had to delay payment due to lack of funds. Many writers found this to be very exasperating and stopped considering WT as a valid market. Even Robert Howard, toward the end of his life, complained about WT not paying him. They owed him several hundred dollars and he was probably at the point of not sending them anything else. After awhile such poor payment practices discourages a writer from continuing to send additional work.

Great, thanks a lot for your answer, it is news to me WT were such an uncertain business for the writers, but what is strange to me is the fact there were authors of horror/fantasy genre capable of writing a good story but who published two or three tales in this or that "weird" magazine and that was the end of their career ... If somebody writes a good tale of terror, I naturally expect to hear more of him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 25 Jan 14 | 05:06PM by Minicthulhu.