Member-only story
The Dirty World of Traditional Publishing
It’s a very strange feeling to walk away from a career everybody admires.
When I left Penguin in 2012, I knew I was giving up a lot of opportunities. To learn from experts who had multiple letters after their name.
To talk about running with the Phys Ed columnist at The New York Times.
To have the momentary thrill of bumping into Stacy London in the hallway, or looking up one day from my desk to see a very confused Chevy Chase.
And, more than anything else, to make writers’ dreams come true. In the storied house where my own favorite author — John Steinbeck — was published.
But, walking out the door, I knew I was also leaving a place that would never see me as equal.
I didn’t summer in the Hamptons. I didn’t go to an Ivy League university. I couldn’t afford to get mani/pedis on the regular. I wore drugstore makeup and had no idea how to play the status game that everyone else did.
I lasted for eight years inside traditional publishing houses for three reasons: I was a great assistant, I have a knack for figuring out what makes a nonfiction book sell and I can handle neurotic AF authors.
