Page 304 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

good artist, the leader in the field, uses my service as much as the poor man
who can’t afford to hire models,” Jackson pointed out. “Here in Chicago
several hundred men and women make their living from art work of one kind
or another. They can’t buy all the magazines that are published (especially
the higher priced foreign publications) because it would take every cent they
earn to do it. And they might never get an idea out of the publications they do
buy. But there is art work in every magazine. I clip the well-drawn
illustrations from a group of picked magazines and index them. I am able to
supply almost any type of illustration that an artist wants whenever he wants
it, for making a sketch. For example, an artist is told to make a drawing that
calls for an archer of the Robin Hood period. He could make the long trip to
the library, secure the pictures needed and make several sketches. Instead of
wasting so much time, he calls me on the phone. I go to my file, pick out two
or three, and send them to him. My fee is three dollars.

“You see forty-seven steel filing cabinets here. I started with one, and about
three dozen magazines, which I had been carrying as samples when I was
with the magazine subscription agency. I clipped every illustration and told a
few artists about it. They had some special work such as illustrating a school
textbook or making a drawing of old Mexico for a magazine and they needed
certain kinds of clippings. I happened to have them. The fees I got out of the
illustrations from magazines enabled me to buy other magazines. I picked
some up for a song at second-hand book stores and I subscribed to the
leading periodicals. One artist told another, and it wasn’t long before I was
doing a highly profitable business. Then I wrote a letter to several film
companies, and explained the type of service I was offering artists, and
mentioned that some of them had requested photographs of film stars to be
used for magazine purposes. I was given a break by two studios, with the
understanding that under no circumstances were the photographs sent me to
be used for advertising in any way. The movie people have a remarkable
facility for artistically posing their subjects and the artists were hungry for
those photographs. They bought them outright, at good prices, and for one
lot, I received seventy-five dollars.

“In many cases the clippings are returned by the artist. When an artist returns
the clippings in good condition, I allow him a discount of 50 per cent. On an