| Jim Shepard |
Jim Shepard
by Christie Hodgen
BOMB 115
Spring 2011
An editor friend once told me, in a conspiratorial voice that indicated he was letting me in on a shameful trade secret, that at the end of the day, at those meetings in which he and his colleagues decided which manuscripts to accept and which to decline, it all came down to one question: “Would you pay $23.95 for this?” However crass it might seem, however awkwardly the worlds of art and commerce might be stitched together, the fact remained that a book had to be worth its price. It had to do something for the reader—teach her something she didn’t know, take her somewhere she’d never been. Make her laugh, make her think. And most importantly—and this was where publishing was a business more so than an art—make her want to buy another book. If a manuscript could do that, my friend said, it was a go.