Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021         Page 465466467468469470471472473474475476477478479480481482483484485486487488489490491492493494495496497498499500501502503504505506507508509510 of 1029

us. By that I don't mean that we weren't at the head of our business, but we no longer could do everything ourselves. We had to get an advertising manager. Then I lost track of the sales. Lou Miller was so good that I left that to him. Manufacturing I never did care about. Donald was doing that. Little by little we began adding important people to our staff, and the sales began vaulting. Suddenly, without our quite realizing it, Random House, instead of being an intimate publishing house, was one of the big publishers of the country. I don't know quite yet how it happened.

This “News of Random House” interests me only because I think...I mean, was it your innovation? You must have thought it up.

Oh, no. A lot of publishers get out inter-office newspapers. The New York Times has always had a little inside newspaper.

Did your little paper go to some of your authors or did you restrict it to your staff?

Sometimes we would send issues around to the entire trade--ones that were deliberately aimed at the funny bone. I think that people will read something if they know they're going to get a laugh out of it.

We put out a lot of fraudulent releases too. I