[wodenokoto]

> McPhee usually had one person at the center of each piece, so he would aim to spend a lot of time with that person … stay at their cottage for a season

Even back when every household received a morning paper I cannot fathom how a single article could command such a high pay.

[cjpearson]

For a magazine like the New Yorker, there was money. You might be interested in Bryan Burrough's experience writing for Vanity Fair in the 90s and 2000s.

> For twenty-five years, I was contracted to produce three articles a year, long ones, typically ten thousand words. For this, my peak salary was $498,141. That’s not a misprint—$498,141, or more than $166,000 per story. Then, as now, $166,000 was a good advance for an entire book. Yes, I realized it was obscene. I took it with a grin.

https://yalereview.org/article/burrough-vanity-fair-graydon-...

[parodysbird]

> Even back when every household received a morning paper I cannot fathom how a single article could command such a high pay.

He wrote for the New Yorker, which is a magazine rather than a newspaper. The number of long-form literary nonfiction pieces that the New Yorker runs every year is drastically fewer than the number of news articles produced to fill a daily newspaper in just a couple weeks.

[MrVandemar]

Roger Zelazny, the science-fiction author, relates a story of how he wrote one story that fulfilled the briefs of three anthologies/magazines, sold it three times, and it was enough to pay for a cruise.

Things were different back in the day.

[justin66]

Less cynically, John McPhee would have been fine if what he made from the New Yorker merely covered his expenses, since he would also publish his work in books.

[kevin_thibedeau]

How do you think Googlers command such high pay?