During this period, some geisha were sponsored by businessmen who made yearly visits; these patrons were known as . Sayo Masuda, an geisha in the late 1930s and early 1940s and author of "Autobiography of a Geisha", the first book of any kind about the geisha lifestyle, wrote that a typical geisha's contract was bought out by a patron for about 30 yen (around 20,000 yen today) and never for more than 100. Interaction with other customers beyond party entertainment was common; therefore, the concept of geisha as sex workers was not entirely incorrect in the earlier half of the 20th century.