H.L. Mencken's Advice to Young Publishers

This is priceless – when novelist William Saroyan asked writer and publisher H.L. Mencken for some advice about starting his own magazine, this was the reply he recieved:

25 January, 1936
San Fransisco, California

Dear Saroyan,

I note what you say about your aspiration to edit a magazine. I am sending you by this mail a six-chambered revolver. Load it and fire every one into your head. You will thank me after you get to hell and learn from other editors there how dreadful their job was on earth.

(Signed, ‘H.L. Mencken’)

LOL, things haven’t changed all that much 70 years later.

Source:

Letters of Note