Tom Mayer

Let's find something else.

But that, when Alex was said that, that changed everything.

And so she had to go back and get all different pricing, and we had to look at what that would do to the cover costs.

for each of the illustrations or like extend them and which one would be better or cheaper which was a lot of extra work but on another level it was like this is necessary you know the author has a new idea a new vision for what they want to do how do we best do that even if it's late in the process and there are like dozens of knock-on effects alexi i'm smiling here okay whatever i happen to be thinking i'm smiling these are tears of joy

Yeah, and on my desk is the first box of the Planet Money book.

They have arrived.

They are right here.

Do you guys want to open them?

You know, there's something about this part of the process that never gets old for me.

It's like the thing that was in your mind, this thing that was just an idea in an author's head goes from this like document on your computer to piles of paper that you've been scribbling on to hours long phone calls with the author about arguing over this paragraph or whatever.

And then all of a sudden there's an actual book in your hand and it just feels magical.

You want to wield the ceremonial blue scissors?

Yes, yes I do.

But we don't know what the outcome is going to be.

How do you get someone who's being pitched hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new titles every week to say this book and not that one?