Talk:Argosy (magazine)

Where did the magazine's name come from?
The article merely states that Frank Munsey started the magazine called "The Golden Arogsy", and later changed it to "Argosy". Is that all? Is there any story about why he chose the name that he did?TheBaron0530 (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * A figurative meaning of "argosy" is a rich store (of something). "Golden" was a prefix that implied a children's periodical; Munsey is though to have modeled the first version of the magazine on Golden Days, a successful children's paper of that time.  There's no source saying clearing that this was Munsey's thinking, but the parallel to Golden Days is drawn in a couple of the sources. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 22:10, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

FAC plans
I am planning to expand this article, and I hope to take it to FAC; if anyone else is interesting on improving this article that would be great. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:33, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Notes on pay rates
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * William MacLeod Raine's first sale was 12,000 words for $25 in 1899; see Raine (1921)
 * William Hamilton Osborne's first sale was $12 before 1902 but he gives no story length; see Osborne (1921).
 * Terhune says (quoted in Mott) that $500 was the top rate for a serial.

Jack Williamson (p. 113 of Wonder's Child) says rates dropped to a cent and a quarter a word some time before he sold "Non-Stop to Mars" (25 February 1939). Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Per Irwin Porges' bio of Burroughs, Don Moore offered ten cents a word for a new Tarzan story in 1931 (p. 804). Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

The 19 September 1949 Newsweek article says the pay rates were "notoriously low" in the 1940s Popular Argosy. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Writer's Digest May 1953 p. 1 has a letter from Lewis saying "While we have no hard and fast boundaries for our prices, our usual non-fiction payments run between $100 and $750 and our fiction payments between $400 and $750 for short stories and $1000 and $1500 for novelettes.". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:47, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Copyrights on covers
I'll note copyrights here where renewed for the years I check. -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:06, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 1931 was renewed.
 * 24 November 1934 to 14 November 1936 renewed.

Double spaces
My edit on this page was reverted with the explanation that double spaces after sentences should remain since the original editor intended for them to be there. However, in the Manual of Style it states, "Some editors place two spaces after a period/full stop (see Sentence spacing); these are condensed to one space when the page is rendered, so it does not affect what readers see." The double spaces are unnecessary, and they should not have shown up in the first place, but they did. Also, I had other edits in that improved the readability of the article. I probably should have waited until after the page was featured to make such changes, but it seemed valuable. Am I wrong in my interpretation of the style guide? —Zujine|talk 09:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi -- and sorry, I meant to follow up with a post to your talk page rather than just a revert. Re the double spaces: you're right that they don't show up in the rendered article, but they do show up in the edit window.  Using double spaces or single spaces after sentences is one of those things that is usually a preference of whichever editor is editing that article frequently, so it's a good idea not to change that (in either direction), though of course there's no obligation to put double spaces after any sentence you add yourself.
 * I went back after the revert and looked at the copyedits you'd made to reimplement them, but I didn't agree they were improvements. For example, you changed after a couple of years his friend moved to New York City to another publishing company to after a couple of years the gentleman moved to New York City to work for another publishing company.  I don't think there's a reason to change "friend" to "gentleman"; the reader is going to be less surprised by the repetition of friend.  Your other change in that sentence was an improvement and I should have reimplemented it then; I've just done so now.  I'm at work with limited time to respond but will try to post specific comments about the other changes later, and we can discuss them and perhaps reimplement any we agree are helpful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Here are a couple of comments on the other copyedits that I reverted. -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Adding equivalent to roughly in front of the first parenthesis that gives the inflated value of a dollar amount. The template has the ability to round, which I think is a better way to handle the fact that these figures are only approximations.  Adding wordage like this is impractical given there are several of these inflation templates in the article; it's better to leave it short and let the rounding do the work of conveying that the numbers are not precise.
 * Munsey invested $500 of his own, and his friend in New York City added another $1,000, making a total of $4,000 changed to His friend in New York added another $1,000, and Munsey invested $500 of his own to have a total of $4,000. I think this was done in order to avoid having "... loan to Munsey.  Munsey invested ..." but I don't think the change is necessary; the repetition of Munsey here echoes the association of the two $500 figures, since the intent was for him to end up with a $1,000 share.
 * capital changed to startup capital. I took this out for brevity; I don't think there's any ambiguity in just saying "capital".