New American Library

It was over 1,600 pages long.

My normal publishers, Random House, Doubleday, New American Library, nobody wanted to touch it because, as my editor said, my agent said, no one's going to publish this 1,600-page book because nobody will read it.

200 pages they will, 1,600 they won't.

He was wrong.

Exactly.

So the true economic breakthrough occurred when New American Library purchased the paperback rights for an astonishing $400,000.

$400,000 in the 1970s.

That is insane.

No one took a nickel they didn't deserve.

Was through Random House, and Doubleday, and New, N- N- A New American Library, and Simon & Schuster, and, and Dodd Mead, and all the, um, all these major publishing companies.

The smaller houses that were struggling that I helped and saved them, every one of them cheated me.

[laughs] So much for, well, help that person, you know, because they need a hand.