August 22

[The Story Teller]

August 22
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Reader’s Digest
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“Don’t dodge difficulties; meet them, greet them, beat them. All great men have been through the wringer.”
—Milne
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Good ideas may meet with success initially, then hit a roadblock when everything looks good. In fact, many ideas are laid to rest at that point. DeWitt Wallace’s dream would have been buried long ago if not for his determination to overcome obstacles. Wallace had an idea for a small publication that would be both entertaining and informative. At the time, there were many good magazines on the market, but a reader would have to spend a small fortune to buy them all. Wallace put together a dummy magazine that used condensations of previously published articles. He named his prototype Reader’s Digest. Unable to secure backers for the venture, Wallace and his fiancée rented an office and set up their own small publishing concern.



On their wedding day, the couple sent out mimeographed circulars seeking subscriptions. When they returned from their honeymoon two weeks later, they had received 1,500 charter subscriptions. The first issue of Reader’s Digest was dated February 1922. Everything went well for a while as other magazines readily gave them permission to reprint articles. But as subscriptions increased, the other magazines began to see Reader’s Digest as competition, and sources for articles dried up. In 1933 Wallace began commissioning articles to be written for other magazines, securing the rights to reprint them later. He was widely criticized, but the concept kept his publication alive. The practice was discontinued in the 1950s, but by then, Reader’s Digest had become a continuing success.



Consider This: Even when your dream does not become a reality the first few times you reach for it, keep trying. Persistence is often your most powerful ally.



Submitted by Richard