Dime Novels

The Writer's Rescue published on Wednesday. In it, Wade Easton  becomes a successful dime novelist after a bull left him disabled, and he couldn't do ranch work anymore. To his surprise, he became quite wealthy writing short Westerns based on his experiences and those he heard other cowboys tell. Dime novelists made anywhere from $50 - $1,000 for each book, and most could write a book a month. In 1870, $50 would equal over $1,000 today, and $1,000 would be worth almost $25,000 today. That means a top-paid dime novelist could make about $300,000 a year in today's prices.

These books were about 100 pages in length and usually small enough to be carried in a large pocket. Today, we would likely call them novellas. The most popular ones were Westerns, but detective stories, mysteries, military heroes, adventures, and romances also took part of the market. Although most of the writers were men, about a fourth of dime novelists were women. Both genders often used pseudonyms when they wrote dime novels. Some also became popular authors in their own right. Upton Sinclair, Horatio Alger, Bret Harte, Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, and Louisa May Alcott were some of them.

The first dime novels were published in the United States around the time of the Civil War. The invention of a more usable typewriter in 1868, better printing techniques, and easier, cheaper ways to ship made dime novels possible. Similar cheap novels began in England in 1836 and were called penny dreadfuls. Dime novels lasted until about 1920 and opened the doors for popular fiction.

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