Susan Weinberg

• Susan Weinberg is Senior Vice President and publisher for Perseus Books.
• She started her career in the Book-of-the-Month Club, then joined HarperCollins, ultimately as publisher.
• Additionally, she is the Group Publisher at Perseus, which includes PublicAffairs, Avalon Travel, Basic Books, Da Capo, and Running Press.
• Susan has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

• https://www.benbellabooks.com
• https://www.perseusbooks.com
• https://www.hachettebookgroup.biz
• https://www.bookofthemonth.com
• https://www.harpercollins.com

Glenn Yeffeth: Welcome to the Building Books Podcast. I'm Glenn Yeffeth, publisher of BenBella Books, and on this podcast we will talk about ideas, authors, and how publishing really works.

Glenn Yeffeth: I'm delighted to welcome Susan Weinberg as our guest today. She's the Senior Vice President and publisher for Perseus Books, which was acquired by Hachette in 2016. Susan started her career in the Book-of-the-Month Club, then joined HarperCollins, ultimately as publisher. She's now the Group Publisher at Perseus, which includes PublicAffairs, Avalon Travel, Basic Books, Da Capo, and Running Press. Susan has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Weinberg: Thank you, Glenn.

Glenn Yeffeth: So big picture, what does a publisher do? What's the job of the publisher?

Susan Weinberg: The publisher to me is, oversees what you publish and how you publish it. That's the best definition I've been able to come up with to describe what is it that a publisher does. But under that definition, any day can be an incredibly different array of activities, and the publisher has to keep in mind always the mission and identity of the publishing line, the financial requirements that either the independent publisher has for him or herself, or that the company you're part of shares with you, and also on the most detailed level to make sure, does the sales team have the materials they need? Are the authors getting care and attention? Are we fulfilling the commitment we've made to them? So any day can be a ... each day is a very different combination of aspects, those kinds of aspects at the top.

Glenn Yeffeth: It's one of the things that makes the job so interesting, isn't it? It's always something new.

Susan Weinberg: It is a great job that way. Even if you walk in thinking you know what the agenda for the day is, at the end of the day you may find it turned out to be different.

Glenn Yeffeth: I mean, one of the things that is so impressive about your perspective now is that you oversee a number of different presses, which have very different focuses. So you know, Basic Books, which is maybe more of the serious books. Running Press, which is more of the pop culture and so on, and Da Capo. Do you feel like there are different formulas for success in the different kinds of publishing houses or is it really all the same thing?

Susan Weinberg: You know, just like any question like that, it's both. I always say, right now I'm the publisher of Perseus Books, and there are no Perseus Books. You won't find a book that says Perseus on the spine, but you will find issues said Basic Books, and there's the publisher Basic Books. There's five major imprint or imprint groups under Perseus, and they're Basic Books, Da Capo, PublicAffairs, Running Press, and Avalon Travel, which has the Moon and Rick Steve's Travel Guides, and each of those groups has a publisher. They each have a unique identity and they face unique challenges, and they have their own way of addressing them. Most of their time is spent really focused on, of course, their imprints, their authors, their challenges, but we do have some commonalities throughout the group, and we also really like to ... On occasion, we meet together to share the experience and the challenges.

Susan Weinberg: And so I would say at Perseus, the identity of the publisher, it really is foremost, and what we really want to be foremost. The publisher and the publishing imprint that the industry and the media and the consumers see is what we really want to project, but there is a commonality to belonging to Perseus. We have a certain kind of independent publishing ethos and a certain kind of discipline and focus in the way we approach things. It's maybe more of a money ball approach to publishing, if you want to give it just a little tack.

Glenn Yeffeth: Well, say more about that.

Susan Weinberg: Well, I think that we are more disciplined in we don't try to be all things to all people. We have different imprints that really look at certain kinds of books and authors and serve different communities of readers. We are known to have more discipline in our advanced spending, more like an independent publisher than a traditional big five outlook. I think that part of our secret sauce is looking for hidden value and doing things that other publishers might not be focused on or doing.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's great. So that's almost the commonality across them, and then within each imprint they have maybe their own formula for figuring out where that hidden value might be in the certain types of books they publish.

Susan Weinberg: Exactly. That's exactly right. And of course, as in any part of publishing, you have your own approach or your sense of identity and your mission and your way of fulfilling it, but you've got to be constantly adjusting it, and that's because the climate we operate in is changing and you've got to be able to absorb that. People don't even think about sometimes when you think about what a campaign might've looked like five years ago to what it looks like now, and certainly what a campaign looked like 10 years ago to what it looked like now. There's-

Glenn Yeffeth: No question.

Susan Weinberg: There's a lot of big differences, and yet you have people who've been in the business decades who've made these adjustments, and if you're not constantly learning from what you've published this year and incorporating that learning into what you publish next year, I think that's also part of what makes a really successful publisher. You have that core identity and mission, but you're also constantly learning and adjusting.

Glenn Yeffeth: It's really interesting to me to hear you say that. At BenBella, it seems like every two or three years we're pivoting and figuring out a new way to be successful or learning from the mistakes we've made in the past, and I almost thought the really substantial publishers like Perseus were immune to that but it sounds like we all have to do that. We all have to continue to adjust and adapt as things change, and that makes sense.

Susan Weinberg: And of course, in publishing, as you're making these adjustments, you don't see the results right away because you're buying books now that, and depending on the publisher, won't be published for a year or two or even three to five or more years.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right. You know, it's funny. I read some interview with Jeff Bezos where he says, "Oh, the things that I do now have nothing to do with this year. It's all about two years from now," and I'm like, "Me too." I have much more influence over 2020 than I do over 2018.

Susan Weinberg: Right.

Glenn Yeffeth: Now, do you get involved with acquisitions?

Susan Weinberg: Somewhat. Yes, yes. I work with each of the publishers on certain acquisitions, but the publishers of the separate imprints are really on the front lines making the day-to-day acquisition decisions. And there's just like in almost any publishing structure, there's a certain level where you have to go and consult, and then of course, just as they're available to their editors and staff, I'm available to them if you're just ... want to talk about something. You know, let's think about it. Let's brainstorm a little bit about it.

Glenn Yeffeth: In a way ... I don't know. We find at BenBella that obviously marketing is so important. You know, getting the ads for a write is so important, but in the end it's about acquisition and getting the right books.

Susan Weinberg: [crosstalk 00:07:17].

Glenn Yeffeth: Is it the same for you all?

Susan Weinberg: I found that out when I was at HarperCollins, which was now many years ago, but I remember we had a meeting with some of the senior editorial staff, and there was the usual, this is nothing new, but some of the people going about this wasn't right with this part or this department wasn't doing this or you know, and a little bit too much of a little venting/frustration session. One of these editors just said, "You know, I think about a big percentage of what happens is all based on the decisions we make when we have acquire the books."

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right. That's right.

Susan Weinberg: And that's not to say that execution isn't crucial. Even if it's 80:20, even if 80% of the fate of the book is, "Did you buy the right book?" and 20% is, "Did you edit it right? Did you market it right? Did you get the publicity right?" That execution can really, really be crucial, so it's just as in any business, it's very easy to have the right idea and the right concept, but making sure you have the right execution on the ground is crucial too.

Glenn Yeffeth: Not only is the execution crucial, but there's a feedback loop that, if you're not executing well your ability to acquire, will of course be diminished because you're going to be seen as less of a good place to have your book.

Susan Weinberg: Yes, that's true. And if you're not executing well and you get bogged down in that, your ability to do other things will be compromised too because you'll be too much troubleshooting and not enough planning and executing the next project.

Glenn Yeffeth: Now are you ... Maybe it's a shut question or maybe it's within Perseus. Are you shifting the way you're thinking about audio books now? I've just noticed in the last six months, you know there's been kind of an explosion around audio and a much more focus around getting audio right. Maybe that's something that you've done for a while or ... What are your thoughts about that?

Susan Weinberg: I think publishers have been investing in and promoting audio books for a long time, but there has been an explosion in the sales, and the usage, and the ... I think it used to be more of like a secret society of people who loved audio books, and now everyone knows about them and is trying them. The sales of eBooks have flattened, but the sales of downloadable audio are rising overall. So it's also suggesting you have a lot more people trying this not really new format, but new to them because ... And I think that publishers for a long time have been really valuing audio rights because, from the publisher's point of view, when you think about it, it's the same content that the staff has edited. It's usually the same jacket that the staff has created. It's riding on the same marketing and publicity campaigns, so hardcover, paperback, Ebook, audio book. They're really all of a piece from the publisher's point of view.

Susan Weinberg: It's exciting to see more people trying new ways of reading books, and I think you are getting maybe more attention to, is there special fun things we can do with audio, and maybe some audio originals or additional audio content. But really the basic, having either an author or a great actor read a book in a brilliant way is still to me the real key to what's going on in audio today.

Glenn Yeffeth: No, I think that's right. I love what you said about the fact that they're all sort of part of the same package. So I'm very reluctant to acquire a book without audio rights, because I feel like whoever has audio rights is kind of a free rider on all the editorial work, all the marketing work that we do, but now with audio getting more aggressive there's some books where audio is signed before I even see the package. So, but we're trying to get away ... We're not doing too much with that, but I'm seeing that now, which I never saw a year ago. What gets you excited about acquiring a book?

Susan Weinberg: It's interesting. I think that some people talk about, when they get excited about acquiring a book, they love the book or they ... And there's some real value and meaning in that, but I think for me it's finding the match between book and author and potential reader. So, you know, does the book say something we haven't heard before, say it in a new and different way, and is there a community of potential readers that we think we can find and match up with this author and this book? And it's when you make that match, that's the most satisfying moment.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's really smart, and I think some of our biggest successes have been when we had a niche book where we found that niche, and that can be a lot of people. Publishing now, it's a slow growth industry, or some would even say a no growth industry, but there's still so many people excited about getting into the business. What advice do you have for someone, let's say, coming out of college who wants to go into publishing? What would you recommend to them?

Susan Weinberg: Well, I think it's great to want to go into publishing, and it's not the biggest, newest, maybe fastest growing business on the block, but to me it's a business and it's a work, a kind of work that really offers incredibly meaningful work to do. You're making this incredibly valuable product, the book in and of itself, and in the forms we talked about is still one of the most ingenious things we've invented to convey human culture and human thought and human experience. There are a lot of ways to contribute in this industry. The biggest thing I always tell people is, most people want to go into publishing because they have a view of being an editor, or they love books, and they want to make books, and they're like, "Well, editors make books," because that's kind of like what you do in school, and you learn how to edit and write, and so they're very focused on that part of the book. But I'm like, just get into a publishing house or into the book ecosystem and find your place.

Susan Weinberg: And your place may be as an editor, but there's a lot of other work to do or ... I was talking to one of our interns recently, and he was talking about the invisible work, that he was really struck by all the invisible work that happened in publishing to get the book out and read. I feel that there's a lot of really great jobs and really great ways to be involved with books and with the making of books, and books still have a really important role in our culture. So you're part of the culture, you're part of history, you're making something valuable and useful and fonder and formative. You can work in sales, you can work in inventory management, you can work on publicity and marketing, you can be an editor. We have financial people that are crucial to our team. There's a lot of ways, and I think people come in and don't have any idea of all these different ways you can contribute.

Susan Weinberg: The other thing that you have to realize is, it really is, as it's often said, an apprenticeship business. So if you come in with a willingness and an eagerness, and any experience you've had with books you can turn into something that can give you an insider entree into publishing. We always loved hiring people who had worked in bookstores. Internships can be very helpful, but not the only necessary entree. So what my biggest advice is, don't be a snob about the job. Just get in there and start working in the industry, and you'll find your way and you'll find your place.

Glenn Yeffeth:  That's very well said. That's very nice. A lot of people ... I see the same thing. You know, the job they know is editor, and they think of it as the most creative job, but really, the marketing jobs are at least as creative. Figuring out the metadata and the getting the copyright. I mean, those are all very creative roles, so there's just a lot of different great jobs in publishing. I'm really happy to hear you say that.

Susan Weinberg: Well, one of my favorite stories about this is an assistant I had and I shared at one time with someone, and who had come in very interested in editorial, and then after about a year she came to us and she was like, "There's an opening in international sales. Would you mind if I applied for that?" And it's like, "No, I encourage you if you've ..." Now when I go to book fairs, I see her. She's selling books in English around the world, and a job she had no idea existed when she first came into publishing.

Glenn Yeffeth: It is so nice to see the people ... I mean, we've had dozens and dozens of interns over the years, and now I just see them around the publishing world, and they're just thriving, and it's really nice to see. So one of the things you've talked about is, maybe we're a slow growth industry, but the disaster that people were predicting at one time has not happened. People are still reading books, book sales are not shrinking, and you might argue that if you count the self-published books, eBooks on Amazon, it's actually growing in terms of total sales because that never really gets ... usually doesn't get counted. So what's your feeling about where the publishing industry is going? Do you feel like it's stable? Do you feel like there's more shocks to come? Any predictions?

Susan Weinberg: You know, when an industry is growing as a whole, there's a lot of opportunity there and things feel very hot and like there's a lot happening, but a lot of times when there's growth like that, kind of almost anything can get swept up in it. And when you're in a more mature industry, I think you have to be a little more thoughtful and really work at, what's my role in here and how am I adding value? There's certainly, in a mature industry, there's a place for anyone who's really focused on doing the job and doing it well and doing it thoughtfully and willing to look at the way that business is going and how you can take advantage of where it's going. And so whether you call it something as uninspired as, "Well, you gained market share," or you just think of it as, "I'm going to be the best I can be in my space, and my area or my company is going to grow even if the whole business isn't."

Glenn Yeffeth: You know, as a small press, of course, we only think of it that way because we're such a tiny percentage that it almost doesn't matter what the industry does. But for us ... For Hachette, obviously it's a different matter. So you've had an amazing career, I mean, just really very impressive. What do you feel contributed to your success over the years in terms of your training, your character, whatever you might say?

Susan Weinberg: Lots of people have had really long, wonderful careers in this business, and I think the key is to keep being a student of the business. I have felt that way since the first day when I came in, my first job and eyes wide open. I just couldn't take it all in fast enough, and I still feel like I'm a student of the business. I think if you just keep wanting to learn and getting better and grow and make new things happen and make things as good as you can each day and find ways to keep trying to make them better. When I think of people who've had really wonderful careers in this business, I think that's a common ... maybe a common thread or common denominator.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's good advice, and there is so much to learn. It's a wonderful combination of an industry that's been around for hundreds of years, but many new things keep happening that you have to keep up with. So it's a wonderful combination, isn't it?

Susan Weinberg: Right. Right. And the other thing which can sometimes be hard is that new things keep happening and you're trying to figure out how to incorporate them into your job, and sometimes one of the hardest things isn't to just figure out the new things you should do, but the things you used to do that maybe you don't have to do anymore. That can apply in a lot of different ways, and sometimes that's the harder part.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right. That's right. Letting go of the stuff that no longer makes sense.

Susan Weinberg: Right.

Glenn Yeffeth: Now, I just noticed this. You have an MBA from Columbia. I have an MBA from University of Chicago. Not a tall competition, but something that I think about was that, is that MBA very useful to me in my publishing career? I was curious what you think about your MBA.

Susan Weinberg: You said it is or isn't?

Glenn Yeffeth: I have mixed feelings about whether it is. Definitely the accounting was helpful. Some of the stuff ... You know, University of Chicago's a very theoretical school, so it was very theoretical. Do you feel like you bring that MBA to your job, that it's very helpful to you now?

Susan Weinberg: You know, I do because it's something that, you know, you learn all this stuff, so of course you're going to apply it, but I've never been able to say, "Oh, I only could be doing this job because I have it." It's almost impossible to imagine, well, how would you do differently? But I wouldn't say it completely changed the approach. It was more like, you learn a lot of new things and you apply them in ways that make sense. And just like any ... I think almost any kind of education can be applied in publishing. The one thing that's true is, it's the math in publishing is not that complicated. So when people ... A lot of non-math people come into publishing, and I always tell them the math is not that complicated. Don't let that intimidate you.

Glenn Yeffeth: You don't need calculus.

Susan Weinberg: Right. It's algebra, you know? If you can add, subtract, multiply, and maybe divide into a couple of ratios, you basically have publishing math covered. So it shouldn't ... not to be intimidated, and anyone, whether they have an MBA or not. Again, the finance people are an important part of any publishing company, so whatever job you're in, include them, think of them, think of them and what they're doing and how they're contributing, and make sure they understand what you're doing because they can help you more if they do.

Glenn Yeffeth: Yeah, no question. We have an accountant that oversees our finance department, who just does our taxes and he oversees everything, and you know, we're not that big a business with 20 people, but he said our accounting is the most complicated accounting he's ever seen between having 500 SKUs and having sales that are returnable and having reserves. He's never seen anything like it.

Susan Weinberg: Maybe you have a profit share or two.

Glenn Yeffeth: We have a lot of profit sharing that gets really complicated. So, you know, our finance department-

Susan Weinberg: But let's be honest, complicated like there's a lot of steps and there's a lot of things to keep track of, but it's not that complicated. It's still adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.

Glenn Yeffeth: It's not advanced, it's not advanced, but there's a lot of-

Susan Weinberg: There's a lot to keep track of.

Glenn Yeffeth: ... a lot to keep track of.

Susan Weinberg: That's right.

Glenn Yeffeth: But I understand what you're getting at because I bet you experience what I experience, which is we get a lot of English people who are like, "I can't do math." And you have to say, "Yeah, you can do math." I mean you can do the basic level of math that we have here. You've just shut off your brain for that, and you just have to open that up because it's not hard.

Susan Weinberg: Right, right. And-

Glenn Yeffeth: And I think that's ... That's probably what you're saying, really.

Susan Weinberg: And we do use ... We do book P&Ls. I'm sure everyone in the big five that might know, in independent publishing, there's more of a some people do, some people don't. But even when Perseus was an independent company, I've always done book P&Ls, I've always had to do book P&Ls, and I very much want the editors actually to see the P&L is their friend, and that the P&L is trying to tell you a story. So I really very much want people who work with any part of publishing math to embrace it and understand it because it's giving you insight and it's part of what helps make you very good at your job. If you're in managing ed, I want you to really understand what the plant cost dynamics are because you can affect them. And the same thing if you're in inventory management, and if you're in sales.

Susan Weinberg: So almost every job there's a piece of publishing math that affects you, and I feel very much like this is not out to get you. The math can be your friend. Make friends with it, understand what it's telling you, and make it part of what you put in your head when you're making decisions.

Glenn Yeffeth: Well, if you develop the online course Publishing Math, I will have everyone in my company go to that because I agree, it's not that complicated, but for a lot of people they just don't get their head around it or they ... It takes them a while.

Susan Weinberg: Well, yeah. And honestly, I mean, one of the challenges in publishing is there's so many things you could do on any given day, and it takes time to sit down and absorb anything and do it right and do it well, and I think one of the challenges is there's, in just about every job I can think of in publishing, there's a lot coming at you all the time, and sort of setting priorities and how much real thinking time you can give any one thing is probably one of the biggest challenges.

Glenn Yeffeth: Now, if you were ... And this, you may not have an incidence for this question, but I was just kind of curious what you would say. If you were to start your own publishing house today, one, would you think that's a crazy idea? And if you didn't think it's a great idea, is there sort of a 21st century way of doing it that you think you would embrace?

Susan Weinberg: You know, first of all, it's fascinating and wonderful to me that people are starting publishing companies and bookstores all the time.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right? It's amazing.

Susan Weinberg: Or taking them over and completely retooling them. To me, the ones that really are exciting is when you can see someone's vision really coming to life, whether it's their vision for their store or their vision for their publishing company, but I think that there's some basics that are the same no matter what. You've got to pick the right books for you. You've got to pay the right price for your enterprise, and you've got to figure out the right way to market them. I think that ... And in the end, and you've got to build value, and in a publishing company, building value is building backlist. For a store, it's building your customer base and your place in the community.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right, and your identity out there with your market. No, I think that's very wise. You know, before you were talking about acquisitions and you said ... You know, you talked about how Perseus traditionally had advanced discipline in terms of being maybe conservative or just smart about what they spend on books, and when we talked about acquisitions, you sort of said that it's not just about how much I love something. It's a more complicated equation. I don't know if at the biggest houses they think this way, but I know from my point of view, it's like almost like investing in a stock. You want to love the stock, but also really miss what the price of the stock is. Right? So a lot of it is getting the right value equation, and so some of that could be maybe you see something other people don't see, but the other part it could be is maybe you can do something somebody else can't do or won't to.

Glenn Yeffeth: So for example, for you, I'm sure it's hundreds of things. For us, for example, like a Vegan book. We've got a huge database of Vegan book buyers. So we know we can do something with a Vegan book that maybe somebody else might not be able to do. That gives us more confidence going in. Do you think that direct relationship with consumers is something that all publishers have to embrace, or is it more of a niche thing that only makes sense in some cases?

Susan Weinberg: You know, every business wants relationships with their consumers, and I think people are trying it on all different levels, to build really big big-topic email lists or websites or destinations or Instagrams or however you want to create that community, and then very specialized ones where you have some people who are really like getting ideas for books by checking out what people are searching on the web. So one of the great things about this business or this industry is it's really ... The ecosystem needs a lot of different kinds of players in.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right. That's right.

Susan Weinberg: There really isn't one way to serve the need. I know people are always concerned about consolidation, for good reason, but every time we see further consolidation we also see incredible flourishing in the independent space as well.

Glenn Yeffeth: Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, some predictions for the future, and I don't know how much you want to talk about this, but you look at Amazon having a bigger and bigger role in the world, and ultimately, if most of the books are going through Amazon, if that ever happens, then it almost redefines the nature of what a publisher does because right now publishers are so driven by ... The big thing they bring to the table is distribution and the ability to get books in all kinds of stores. If Amazon is dominating that, then other things become maybe more important. When you look at the value that the publishers add, how do you think about it?

Susan Weinberg: I understand that traditionally a lot of people said, "Well, a big publisher ... You go to a publisher because they can get your book out, and they can get your book into a lot of places," but I think it's much more than that. I mean, I don't disagree with that. You know, any publishing company I've worked with has had amazing people in sales who do incredible work to get books out there. In my background, I used to work at the Book Clubs, and I always say ... Although it dates me, I worked at the Book Clubs before there was Amazon, which was very different ... a different moment. We knew all our customers by name, and so I ... The one thing, the one perspective it gave me when I came into trade publishing is I understood that the store was not the customer. The store was our gateway to the customer. The customer was the person who came in the store and bought the book. I've never forgotten that. The people who keep this business going are the people who pay $18.97, $26.84, $85.85. It's those individual purchases that keep this business going.

Glenn Yeffeth: See, a lot of publishers don't think of it that way. They think of the bookstores as the customer.

Susan Weinberg: Right, and the bookstores are a very important part of the ecosystem, but they're our partner in getting to a lot of our customers. I'm not a big prognosticator about the future, but I think no matter how things are going in a certain way, you should never assume they're going to keep going that way forever.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right, right. No, that's smart. Now, how big a role do you play in the marketing side of the different publishing houses? Is that something you spend a lot of time on?

Susan Weinberg: Each of the publishers has their own team for marketing, for marketing and publicity, and I really see my role as helping them do what they need to do to get their books out there. They are really responsible for the tone, the tenor. We discuss what's going on, and I'm here as a sounding board, critique, discuss, but I'm not here so that everything flies through me before it gets out there.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right, that would be crazy. Right.

Susan Weinberg: Right. I'm really here to help them create the right environment so that they are putting best foot forward as much as possible.

Glenn Yeffeth: No, that makes sense. So any advice for an up and coming author who wants to build a career as an author?

Susan Weinberg: It's really ... To me, it still moves me how many people want to write books and want to get them and to get them out there, and it's still a testament to how important the book is. I know that sometimes, from the author's point of view, it can look frustrating. We try so hard to be as visible and transparent with authors as we can about the process and what's happening. I would say, which I think most agents would say too, is be a partner with your publisher. I mean, we really see the authors as partners. We're in this together. We're there to help you. Publishers would be nowhere without authors. Publishers are really here to work with our authors, and we succeed together.

Glenn Yeffeth: No question.

Susan Weinberg: And so I think sometimes ... Something we're always looking at ourselves for is, are we being clear enough with the authors? Are we communicating in the right way? And of course there are challenges, and people have all kinds of stories because every book and author is different, but I think my perspective is to really go in to be a partner. I know sometimes I hear from people authors feel, "Well, I've done so much," and I'm telling you, your publisher is doing a lot of work too. I wish is if you could make all that invisible work visible to you, it would ... I think you would be somewhat amazed.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right, right. And you know, as we move ... Do you encounter a lot of competition from authors deciding to self-publish or is that something that on the non-fiction side you're not seeing much of?

Susan Weinberg: I think there are a lot of authors who do self-publish, and there's occasions where we've found authors who really had something amazing to say and we've been able to convince them to come with us the next book or to stay with us. I feel like someone who wants to self-publish is looking for a pretty unique experience, and if that's really what they want to do, I understand that and respect that, but I find that a lot of people are still very interested in working with a publisher.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right. I think it's a lot of misinformation too about what it's like to be with a publisher and the pros and cons of self-publishing, and like you, I think if someone wants to self-publish, that's great, but we've brought in a number of books that were self-published that we were able to have literally a 10 times growth on. There's still a little juice left in the publishing system for authors. Is there any books coming up that you're excited about? Now you have to choose between your children now.

Susan Weinberg: Right, right, right. We have a lot of great books coming up. One of them, and I'm just going to tell you about it because I think everyone's going to see this book this fall, is Black Dog & Leventhal has the New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons coming-

Glenn Yeffeth: Oh, I love this.

Susan Weinberg: ... this fall, and the cartoons from the beginning of the magazine till now organized by topic. But you know, this is the New Yorker Encyclopedia, so the topics are like the grim reaper.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right. How many pages is that? That's got to be enormous.

Susan Weinberg: It's a boxed two volume set. It is well over ... I don't know the exact page count. It's well over a thousand pages, and it's going to be a big, beautiful gift book.

Glenn Yeffeth: Oh, I think I'm going to treat myself to that.

Susan Weinberg: Gift book. It's going to be a big, beautiful gift book this fall. And then we have a book coming from PublicAffairs by Ambassador Wendy Sherman, Not For The Faint of Heart, and it's she was on the front lines and literally at the table on the Iran negotiations and with North Korea, and she's got a lot of interesting things to say. We're getting a lot of early interest in that book coming. And Basic Books, this fall, has an amazing biography of Napoleon that's coming out. It's a book that manages to give us a whole new view. The early reviews have just been amazing on this book, and anyone who loves history, biography, I think is going to be really drawn to this book.

Glenn Yeffeth: Oh, that's really exciting. You know, I was just reading a book in which Napoleon was a chapter in it. It's one of those [inaudible 00:35:29] history books, and it made me think, "I want to learn more about ..." I mean, because it ... There was just such an amazing confluence of events and his character, which was so unique, and apparently he was a control freak and he was down to every little detail of how you load the cannons, and I bet that's going to be a great read.

Susan Weinberg:  Yeah, yeah.

Glenn Yeffeth: So, last question. It's hard to get away from the crazy political environment we've been in over the last year. Has that affected your business for good or for bad?

Susan Weinberg: Everything affects this business.

Glenn Yeffeth: Right, of course.

Susan Weinberg: Everything affects this business. When the news cycle gets taken up by something, when you're in non-fiction, that can always ... You know, your best laid plans can be-

Glenn Yeffeth: We've gotten some big media bumped by something new that Trump did that week or whatever.

Susan Weinberg: Right, right. But you know, when there's a lot of activity and attention, there's opportunity as well.

Glenn Yeffeth: That's right, that's right. And whatever people ... And that's the wonderful thing about this business. It's almost like you can't hide. You have to embrace what's going on because that's what people want to read books about.

Susan Weinberg: Right.

Glenn Yeffeth: All right, well, Susan, thank you so much. This has been wonderful, and I know your time is very valuable, so I'm really grateful for you spending the time with me today.

Susan Weinberg: Thank you, Glenn.

Glenn Yeffeth: Thank you for listening to the Building Books Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you happen to listen to it, or share it on social media. If you're an author who would want to submit a proposal or pitch to BenBella Books, please go to benbellabooks.com. Click on the For Prospective Authors button, and it'll lead you through a little form that makes it really easy to submit to us. Thank you.