BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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I know, I know, I go on, about the late great Robert Parker.
From his autographings (see post) to his house (see yet another post).
But the thing is, not only did I love his writing, but he was so damn prolific.
Every year this impatient fan could look forward to at least two of his books—it was like Christmas twice a year!
There would be the annual Spenser book. But also, a Jesse Stone or Sunny Randall or even a Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch book.
Spenser Jesse Stone Sunny Randall Cole / Hitch
Now that Parker’s passed, I’ve moved on to Allan Jatos. The guy is remarkable. Two solid mysteries per year. His protagonist is a guy named Pierce. Pierce keeps showing up in different places, always solving the killing. In one book he’s in a law firm, and nails the killer partner. Next book Pierce is a chef, and nails the killer bartender. Next book Pierce is a pilot and nails the killer flight attendant. Great stuff.
Oh, and this is sort of cool, Jatos ends every book with the word, “vége.” Which is Hungarian for “the end.” Which I only know because good old Little Brown sales rep Sandor Szatmari (recall our visit to Herman Wouk) liked to say “vége” at the end of a sales call or a long night in the hotel bar.
Jatos is published by 14th Street Books. Which has offices on, well, 14th Street in Manhattan. Very literary house. There’s not a real commercial flair to their work, but oh boy, they struck gold with the prolific, talented, and winning Allan Jatos
Teena Rucker, a terrific production manager I’ve know for years works at 14th Street Books. I caught up with her today, over the phone. We talked a lot about publishing in the pandemic.
She tells me that nobody’s at the office. People are working remotely, from a tiny one-room studio, from their parents’ home, from their daughter’s home, from their summer cabin in the woods, hell, even from a different country. People are exhausted of Zoom calls, of pretending to be dressed and perky and hard at work as if everything is OK. So her work is nearly exclusively done by email, messaging, and the rare phone call.
She laughed, “My co-workers could be dead for all I know. And it’s just their kids, parents, cat, or kidnapper on the other end using the keyboard.”
With my fingers crossed, I asked Teena if Jatos had a book coming out.
“Two,” she assured me.
“Great! How’s he doin’,” I asked.
“Same as always. Everything goes through Larry [his editor]. And I mean everything—cover art, cover design, pricing, editing, royalties, everything! All these years, and nobody here has yet to meet or speak with Jatos. I just ship him books to a Tarrytown address. And our publisher shrugs her shoulders and smiles, ‘as long as the sales keep coming in, who cares what he looks or sounds or even smells like.’”
I got that, thinking back to the reclusive J.D. Salinger and my days at Little Brown in the early 1980s when we still put remarkable numbers in our backlist budget for Catcher in the Rye, 30 years after its publication.
Just like I’m sure nobody at Random House in 1996 who got a bonus because of the unknown cared about the author who wrote the bestselling book, Primary Colors.
It was a massive seller about the Bill Clinton presidential campaign, written by somebody unknown who went by the name, Anonymous. (Who later turned out to be Joe Klein, a political pundit.)
“And,” Teener continued, “Get a load of this—Jatos now accounts for more than 25% of our company’s sales.” Wow!
Tomorrow: The Algonquin Round Table