Our friend Bill Wolfsthal, a book publishing consultant who works with publishers, authors, and technology companies, looks back on his 40 years in book publishing and tells why he loves books and the book business.
Forty years. 2,000 work weeks. 2,000 Mondays, minus long weekends, of course. That's a long time to do anything. I have worked in publishing since September, 1984. That was 40 years ago.
When I took my first publishing job, I did not give one iota of thought to where it could lead. All I knew was that if I wanted to move out of my parents' place, I needed a paycheck, and Nick Lyons Books was offering me a job at $11,000 a year working in the book business. That was $11,000 more than I was making as an intern at Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine!
As my father accurately and condescendingly explained, $11,000 a year really wasn't enough of a salary to move out, so he offered to help pay the rent on my first apartment (250 square feet in the West Village right next to the famed, now-defunct watering hole Tortilla Flats on West 12th Street) with no cable and lots of mice.
I became an editorial assistant. I learned to proofread and copyedit. I made copy after copy of whole manuscripts. I opened the mail. I took out the garbage. I worked on a book on bear attacks, aptly titles Bear Attacks. I worked on a book about family farms and making hay, aptly called Making Hay. I worked on a book about French fishing flies, aptly called, yes, French Fishing Flies. All three are still in print. That's a wonder to me.
After less than a year, my boss, the author, publisher, professor of English, and world-renown fly fisherman Nick Lyons, explained to me that I was not a very good proofreader or copyeditor, so he asked me to spend more of my time on sales and marketing. I called on bookstores and Baker & Taylor. I worked with sales reps. I did mass mailings of book covers. I printed out mailing labels. I packed up advance reading copies. I sent materials to sales reps. I licensed serial rights, set up bookstore displays, wrote press releases. I worked long hours, and got a raise to $13,000 a year and then $17,000 a year and then to $23,000.
What I didn't know at the time was that I was serving an apprenticeship for a career that would last decades and take me from Nick Lyons Books to Sterling Publishing (now Union Square Press) to Carol Publishing Group (now long gone) to the re-named Lyons Press (now part of Globe Pequot/Rowman &Littlefield) to the venerable Harry N. Abrams, Inc. to the start-up Skyhorse Publishing, and to my current role as "book publishing consultant," a title I very much like.
Along the way, I had kind bosses and mean bosses, worked on New York Times bestsellers and books that did not sell 1,000 copies, talked to grateful authors and angry authors, learned Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel; called on indie bookstores and library systems; fly shops and hardware stores; B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, Borders, and Barnes & Noble; Target, Sam's Club and Costco. I read great books that didn't sell well and mediocre books that sold a ton, sold a series of Amish romances and books on whittling and woodcarving. I sold hardcovers, trade paperbacks, mass market paperbacks, library editions, leather-bound signed limited editions, public domain reprints, e-books, and audiobooks.
Book publishing was, and is, a great way to make a living. Books are seemingly an indefinite source of information, amusement, philosophy, advice, and artfulness; and they are a great way to keep a door open or raise a laptop so you can be seen on Zoom. I have so many memories, and the books on my bookshelf are there to remind me of this publisher and that editor, this author and that designer, this publicist and that book signing.
I also have 40 years of memories of the people I worked with: wise editors, skilled production people and cover designers, hardworking sales reps, eager assistants, clever publicists, all of whom gave me advice, criticized me, energized me, improved me, and made me the executive I became and the human I am.
I have regrets. I wish I had taken more long lunches with friends and colleagues. I wish I had pushed for more diversity in hiring. I wish I could have made more authors more money. I wish I didn't have to remainder so many books. I wish I could have been a kinder, better mentor to the people who worked for me. To those I may have wronged, I am sorry. To those who remember me fondly, the feeling is mutual.
And I am not done yet. I still work regularly and excitedly for clients. Some of them are authors. Some of them are publishers. Some of them are tech companies. But I tell them all the same thing. I love books and the book business. Why shouldn't I? For four decades, this business has put bread on my table and books on my shelves.
I.M. Aiken, author of The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County (Flare Books/Catalyst Press).
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