THE TWENTY-THIRD PAGE

Readers’ reports were no longer needed for evaluation of a work’s literary merit, so I took advantage of the extra-literary considerations needed by the publishers. It paid off beautifully and I became the most highly paid reader in the paperback business.

If the novel were short, I deemed it poetic. Mid-length, say three hundred pages, became well-controlled. Long was rich and or/informative. Historical themes were epic; sex, very sexy; romance (and religion), deeply moving, and humor, best avoided for commercial needs, was always wildly hilarious.

A few key critical evaluations of this nature coupled with a plot summary containing lines that could be extracted as sales handles gave the reports a certain authority, but it was the bottom lines that paid so handsomely.

I’d been around long enough to know how to get the details truly important for an informed decision. If the hardcover publisher was announcing a first printing of 50,000 and a sales rep told me it looked more like 10,000, the value of the reprint deal was diminished. If a lengthy promotion tour was promised and the publicity folk confided in me that the author was hopelessly shy, the paperback wasn’t worth much.