In 1836, publishers and booksellers William T. Truman and Winthrop B. Smith approached William Holmes McGuffey to write the first for volumes of what would become the wildly popular Eclectic Reader series. The entire series, which would expand to include two more readers, a primer, a speller, and a speaker, would sell 120 to 150 million copies. A version is still in print today, and scanned copies are available online.
McGuffey’s name would go on to become a household word for nearly a century, but were the Readers a good business deal for him? The Havighurst Special Collections at Miami contains the original handwritten 1836 contract with Truman & Smith which sheds some light on the creation of the Readers.
The contract gives McGuffey eighteen months to complete the four books, which would have put his due date at the beginning of 1838. It specifies the length of each manuscript; he would provide enough material to fill 72 pages for the First Reader; 160 pages for the Second Reader; 168 pages for the Third Reader; and 276 pages for the Fourth Reader. In sum, he would need to create and compile enough material for 676 printed pages in a progressively more difficult arrangement.
Truman & Smith would keep the lion’s share of the profits from the sales of the books, plus they would receive and retain the copyright. In an arrangement which we would today call a “work made for hire,” McGuffey gave up the original copyright plus agreed that Truman & Smith could renew their ownership of the copyright in perpetuity so long as the law allowed. Within the terms of this contract, McGuffey would never hold the copy right to his own work.
In exchange, McGuffey would receive ten percent of sales up to $1,000. He would receive no further royalties if sales went beyond that point. However, $1,000 in 1836 dollars would be equivalent to over $34,000 today. McGuffey was teaching at Miami the entire time he was writing the Readers, making this one of the better side hustles in history.
Jennifer Lorenzetti, MS, Curator, McGuffey House & Museum