In 1912, after numerous rejections, Hurst finally published a story in "The Saturday Evening Post", which shortly thereafter requested exclusive release of her future writings. She went on to publish many more stories, mostly in the "Post" and in "Cosmopolitan" magazine, eventually earning as much as $5,000 per story. Her first collection of short stories, "Just Around the Corner", was published in 1914, and her first novel, "Star-Dust: The Story of an American Girl", appeared in 1921. By 1925, she had published five collections of short stories and two novels, and become one of the most highly paid authors in the United States. It was said of Hurst that "no other living American woman has gone so far in fiction in so short a time."