To understand the Burroughs quote you need to take a peek at his career. From
Wikipedia:
Quote:
By 1911, after seven years of low wages as a pencil-sharpener wholesaler; Burroughs began to write fiction. [...] In 1929, he recalled thinking that
...if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.
|
Then look at his output in the first three years of publication: Tarzan, Barsoom, Pellucidar, The Mucker, Outlaw of Torn, The Mad King.
Not only was he prolific, he was playing the field. To me it really does look like he was hedging his bets, perhaps thinking that the people had to like at least one of these story lines.