Tor’s Worlds Without Death or Taxes
“Doherty sold Tor to St. Martin’s in 1986 but maintained editorial control. Although St. Martin’s later became part of the German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck, Tor has retained a large degree of independence. This is deliberate, in part because Tor has an unusual editorial process. At most fiction publishing houses, decisions are made by consensus. All the editors, often drawn from many genres, sit down together and decide which authors to sign and how much to spend on promotions and advances. The result, Doherty argues, is an unwillingness to try something new or unusual. Tor decided to do things differently. “We don’t do things by committee and we don’t expect anyone to take care of us,” Doherty says. “We can stray outside the genre as long as they sell. We’ve got to be self-supporting.”
Despite being part of a large multinational publishing concern, Tor sometimes behaves more like a mom-and-pop shop—though not without that profit motive in mind. Doherty’s two daughters work for the company. So when his daughter Kathleen, who was working with Wal-Mart on a literacy promotion program, came to him with a plan to publish cheap copies of classics that were bound and illustrated in ways that appealed to kids instead of teachers, Doherty gave the green light. That order wound up totaling 17.5 million books.
Doherty says he also has given away “hundreds of thousands of copies” of Orson Scott Card’s young adult favorite Ender’s Game over the years, as a kind of science fiction gateway drug. He writes his congressman once a month, just to tell him what’s on his mind. Today he plays the role of grand old man with style—Nielsen Hayden calls him an “old-fashioned captain of industry, entrepreneur type”—presiding over Tor’s burrow from his award-cluttered office in the Flatiron’s pointed end.
Tor enjoys strong name recognition and brand loyalty among fans, thanks to its quirky catalog, industry.”
I love reading the fiction of Orson Scott Card and all of my teens are avid readers of his books.
Here is a link to Cards web site.
The New Ender Book: Ender in Exile
