One of the most often asked questions in this forum is how much should be paid for content. Quoted rates are usually all over the place, but now I can say -- with confidence -- that if you want a top writer, be prepared to shell out $25.20 per word ;-)
Yep, that's twenty-five dollars 20 cents per word.
It turns out that sometime around 1905 or so, S.S. McClure offered Mark Twain $1 per word to syndicate 50,000 words in his self-named McClure's Magazine. I didn't realize how many different ways there are to trace the value of a dollar over time; using one of the better known indices, the Consumer Price Index, puts that buck a word in 1905 at $25.20 in 2009 dollars.
Twain wasn't able to accept McClure's offer as he had a contract with Harper Bros. that pegged his price per word at 30 cents for periodicals. That's still a nice $7.55 in 2009.
The offer is recounted in the newly-published Autobiography of Mark Twain. It's fascinating, and if you like biography you should pick it up. But be warned: This 736-page book only contains 260 or so pages of actual autobiography. The rest is introductory material, some preliminary stuff, mini-biographies of people mentioned, explantory notes, notes on the explanatory notes, source, etc. I'm using four bookmarks to keep track of where I am. Oh, and this is only volume one of three.
