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You cannot have it two ways. You'll have a boy like the enterprising newcomer who published Unsafe at Any Speed.

Ralph Nader.

That's the author. No. Grossman. Now he's only published, as far as I Know, a few books. Meanwhile he's on his own. If he gets a couple of more successes like Unsafe at Any Speed, he'll have to spread out like all of us. As you grow bigger, details start to fall out of your hands. You can't watch every book. You have to trust your editors.

Do you feel that you have been able to succeed in trusting your editors? I know that there are some publishers where there have been complaints that that doesn't happen.

We have a rule at Random House that any of our senior editors can take a book if they want to without question unless the advance is enormous. If it's an advance of $10,000 or less, they have the privilege of taking that book. If they fall too often on their faces...

There would be an investigation.

Yes. But it has never happened with us.

I think that we have the greatest board of editors in