“Consider the expert angler. He always opens the stomach of the first trout of the day in order to learn what the fish are ‘taking.’ Then he digs down into his fly book to find something that looks the same and is almost as good. (I see now that my metaphor is unfortunate; far be it from me to hint that any editor is a fish.) What I really want to get at is this: The magazine is the editor’s stomach. Open it and see what he is buying, then proceed…” — Charles E. Van Loan, writing on “How I Broke Into the Magazines,” in the American Magazine, 1918.
Van Loan was a popular writer of the day, primarily on sports topics.
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