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Yes. But mine is a very small one compared to people that I really admire.
You have fun doing the books. Why haven't you published them yourself? I think that it's wonderful that you haven't, but have you sort of made a practice of...?
I think that it is very impolitic for a publisher to publish his own book, and most other publishers feel the same way. Jovanovich, head of Harcourt, when he did a book, didn't publish it himself either. If you advertise your own book, ten of your authors are going to say, “I see that you have money to advertise your own book. Why didn't I have an ad in The Times this morning? You're spending your time exploiting your book instead of mine.” If another publisher does it, it takes some of the sting away. Then, there's a great pleasure in having another publisher because you always get fed up at some point with authors pestering you. You know, “My cousin was in Des Moines yesterday and my book wasn't in the window of any store there,” or “It wasn't in the airport at Shreveport,” and all the other standard kicks that an author registers. “My royalty statement is wrong.” “Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?" When I get a belly full of that now, I can always go over to Doubleday and make the same kind of a nuisance out of myself, which I do, of course.
Of course, when Doubleday and I start arguing about
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