Writer Unboxed

Therese Walsh on Mar 02 2008 | Filed under: REAL WORLD

I read this in today’s Writer’s Almanac and had to share. Did you ever wonder how some of the big publishing houses began? Here’s the story of one of them:

It’s the birthday of the publisher Max Schuster, born in Kalusz, Austria (1897). He was working as the editor of a trade magazine when he met a man named Richard L. Simon, who sold pianos for a living. The two shared the same office building, and they began having lunch together every day. They were both interested in the publishing business and decided to start a publishing house of their own.

They had all kinds of plans and ideas for their new publishing venture, but no authors to publish. One day, Simon overheard his aunt say that she wished there were a collection of crossword puzzles she could give to a sick friend. At the time, crossword puzzles were a new invention, printed only in newspapers. Simon and Schuster decided to try printing a collection of crossword puzzles for their first book. It sold half a million copies in less than a year. It helped launch a worldwide crossword puzzle craze and put Simon and Schuster on the publishing map.

Simon and Schuster went on to become one of the most successful publishing houses in America. Instead of publishing books that authors had already written, they usually came up with the ideas themselves and assigned them to authors. They helped invent the self-help genre by publishing Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1938), and they went on to publish books about how to dance, how to buy real estate, how to invest, do your taxes, play checkers, train a dog, keep house, and succeed in business.

Write on, all!

Therese Walsh co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, sold to Random House in a two-book deal in 2008, was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2009, and was a Target Breakout Book in 2010. She's never been published with a lit magazine, but LOST's Carlton Cuse liked her haiku best on Twitter, and that made her pretty happy.