I have speculated a good deal as to the success of this book. The title had, no doubt, much to do with it; clever advertising helped it further; the cover was a lure to the eye. The name of a popular illustrator may have helped, but it is certain that his pictures did not! I think I am safe in saying that the book received no helpful reviews in any newspapers of the first class, and I may add that I am skeptical as to the value of favorable notices in stimulating the sale of such books. Serious novels are undoubtedly helped by favorable reviews; stories of the kind I describe depend primarily upon persistent and ingenious advertising, in which a single striking line from the “Gem City Evening Gazette” is just as valuable as the opinion of the most scholarly review. Nor am I unmindful of the publisher’s labors and risks,--the courage, confidence, and genius essential to a successful campaign with a book from a new hand, with no prestige of established reputation to command instant recognition. The self-selling book may become a “best-seller”; it may appear mysteriously, a “dark horse” in the eternal battle of the books; but miracles are as rare in the book trade as in other lines of commerce. The man behind the counter is another important factor. The retail dealer, when he finds the publisher supporting him with advertising, can do much to prolong a sale. A publisher of long experience in promoting large sales has told me that advertising is valuable chiefly for its moral effect on the retailer, who, feeling that the publisher is strongly backing a book, bends his own energies toward keeping it alive. It would be absurd for me to pretend that the leap from a mild _succès d’estime_ with sales of forty and fourteen thousand, to a delirious gallop into six figures is not without its effect on an author, unless he be much less human than I am. Those gentle friends who had intimated that I could not do it once, were equally sanguine that I could not do it again. The temptation to try a second throw of the dice after a success is strong, but I debated long whether I should try my hand at a second romance. I resolved finally to do a better book in the same kind, and with even more labor I produced a yarn whose title--and the gods have several times favored me in the matter of titles--adorned the best-selling lists for an even longer period, though the total sales aggregated less.