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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

books because of their narrow margins and because the small type hurts their eyes--they're willing to pay a little bit more for a hardbound book. The Vintage series is aimed at the college market. A lot of our titles, like Fulbright's Arrogance of Power, have sold five times as much in Vintage as in the hardbound edition. A book like Stokely Carmichael's Black Power, which again somebody at RCA raised an eyebrow about (imagine RCA owning a company that published Stokely Carmichael!) sells almost exclusively in paperback.

Q:

Do you want to discuss getting the trio for Knopf now?

Cerf:

O.K.! What was happening with Knopf was that Alfred, as I say, more or less retired. Now he comes in only one or two days a week. Blanche is dead. They've got good editors there. Bill Koshland, who has now been made president, is a wonderful caretaker; but there was a gap. The succession, that I told you every publisher needs, was not there. Then came our miracle. We heard about the disaffection of the Simon and Schuster trio, a publishing business in themselves--Robert Gottleib, Tony Schulte, and Nina Bourne.... Nina was the advertising manager at Simon and Schuster for twenty-eight years and just about the best in the business. All three of them were disconsolate and not happy, we found out, at Simon and Schuster because of the gyrations of Mr. Shimkin, who was a great financial wizard but doesn't particularly care about publishing or the people whowork for him. In fact, he was heard





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