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The first magazines that went were the books of only light fiction--magazines like Bluebook, Ainslee's...

Or Redbook.

Redbook has kept up with the times. Redbook has changed its character; but there were lots of magazines that went on printing corny stories. That market disappeared. Look at the Saturday Evening Post! It used to have three or four fiction stories an issue and one article. Now they have maybe one story. The rest is articles.

It's just like...when I started publishing. Fiction out-sold non-fiction four-to-one. Now that ratio is absolutely reversed, and non-fiction out-sells fiction four- to-one. You'll get a book like Valley of the Dolls, or The Source, or...Santa Vittoria, or...Nat Turner. They'll go bigger than they ever did before because the big best-sellers sell better and better, but the bulk of new fiction doesn't sell at all. It's heart-breaking to bring out a good first novel and watch it die virtually at birth!

Do you think it's because...?

People just are not reading fiction. Life is too exciting itself. The fiction writer can't compete with the front page of the newspaper. My God, the things that are happening in this world today! More things happen to us