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No.

That's what makes publishing fun in a way.

That's what makes publishing so baffling.

Challenging too.

You get what you think is going to be a wow and you cannot put it over.

We got a book once, sent to us by an agent, called Nine Hours to Rama. I read it with such excitement. I called up the agent at three o'clock in the morning.

Oh, boy, poor agent. If our phone rings like that, I get furious.

He was. I said, “I'm delirious about this book.” Well, of course he was pleased. We published it. The Literary Guild took it. It was sold for a huge price to Hollywood, and the book came out with great fanfare. It sold about 11,000 copies. The movie cost about three million dollars to make and was a total, complete failure. How do you explain it?

It was a story about an attempt to kill Gandhi. The American public didn't give a damn about it.