History of Pocket Books editors

[Greg Cox]

Wasn't that limited to Marvel Comics? Something that Stan Lee hated the color green and would fire everybody who used it prominently on a cover?

Nah, I heard it cited in both mainstream and genre publishing, at Arbor House, William Morrow, Tor Books, etc, and never in the context of comic books. Although, at the time I broke into publishing, it was already starting to be regarded as more superstition than fact.

I believe the blockbuster success of THE FIRM by John Grisham pretty much drove a stake through the "green covers don't sell" thing . . ..

 

[Christopher]

I believe the blockbuster success of THE FIRM by John Grisham pretty much drove a stake through the "green covers don't sell" thing . . ..

I remember a bookstore employee telling me how much the vivid green spine of Only Superhuman stood out on the shelf. Then again, that book didn't sell quite as well as we'd hoped.

 

[Greg Cox]

I remember a bookstore employee telling me how much the vivid green spine of Only Superhuman stood out on the shelf. Then again, that book didn't sell quite as well as we'd hoped.

I'm looking at that spine on my own brag shelf now, and, yep, it pops right out. (I actually glanced at my shelves to see how many green covers there were and ONLY SUPERHUMAN was the first book I spotted, followed by OTHER KINGDOMS by Richard Matheson.)

Like I said, I think the green covers thing is dead now. Tor had a big bestseller with THE RELIC many years back and that had a green cover in mass-market. Not sure I've heard anyone mention the green cover curse since.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder... If we had gotten to do sequels to Only Superhuman, do you think we would've kept the same shade for the spines, or maybe used different shades of green to distinguish them?

 

[Greg Cox]

I wonder... If we had gotten to do sequels to Only Superhuman, do you think we would've kept the same shade for the spines, or maybe used different shades of green to distinguish them?

Good question. I could be wrong--I'm not in the art department and haven't attended a sales conference or marketing meeting in years--but I'm not sure keeping the same color on the spine is a concern when it comes to series. A quick peek at my Tor shelf is inconclusive: Tor's FARSCAPE books all had black spines, but our ZORRO books had differently colored spines. And, most importantly, I don't recall Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" books having the same color on all its spines--and that's probably the bestselling series in Tor's history.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I just hope that figuring out what spine design scheme to use for an ongoing series of original novels is a problem I'll get to have someday...

 

[Amalak]

Cool Cover.

 

[youngtrek]

[...] Margaret Clark actually started working on Trek reference books in the latter half the '90s, before moving to fiction in 2002. Ed Schlesinger's apparently been around since 2003, according to his Simon & Schuster bio. [...] These days it's Ed and a returned Margaret who oversee the line.

Whenever I’m searching for info on who the current editors over the Star Trek novels are I usually get brought back to this old thread. So, I’m wondering if it’s still accurate as of today in that the current editors are still Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger?

David Young
Brandon, Florida

 

[Christopher]

So, I’m wondering if it’s still accurate as of today in that the current editors are still Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger?

Yes, they are.

 

[SevenJetC]

Am I wrong or did Jaime Costas only last a very short time in role? Anyone know the books she was responsible for?

I know this has been asked four years ago, but I stumbled over this thread as I was translating Kirsten Beyer's Children of the Storm and I needed to know if Jaime was he or she for the language reasons. The acknowledgements part in the book, including the mispelling of the name, states: "Jamie Costas hired me to write it and gave me a tremendous amount of freedom to push the story to new depths."
So I would assume she was on that one.

 

[Greg Cox]

I know this has been asked four years ago, but I stumbled over this thread as I was translating Kirsten Beyer's Children of the Storm and I needed to know if Jaime was he or she for the language reasons. The acknowledgements part in the book, including the mispelling of the name, states: "Jamie Costas hired me to write it and gave me a tremendous amount of freedom to push the story to new depths."
So I would assume she was on that one.

She was definitely a she.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Wasn't that limited to Marvel Comics? Something that Stan Lee hated the color green and would fire everybody who used it prominently on a cover?

In the case of Stan Lee not wanting green used on Marvel's covers, the general consensus seems to be that it was an idle comment of Stan's that was taken as a strict rule by overly-cautious folks in the Marvel Bullpen. He likely said something like "Don't use so much green on the cover!" when what he meant was "Don't use so much green on this particular cover" and that somehow evolved to "Stan doesn't want us to ever use green on covers."

A similar thing happened with Iron Man being drawn with a nose on his faceplate for a while. Supposedly, Stan looked at a particular panel featuring Iron Man and said, "...Shouldn't he have a nose?" Meaning: "Shouldn't there be enough room behind Iron Man's faceplate for Tony Stark's nose to fit?" And that led to Iron Man being drawn with a nose on his mask for a while. Then one day, Stan saw a drawing of Iron Man with a nose, said, "...Why does he have a nose? It looks silly," and they stopped it. Kurt Busiek tells the story in this Twitter thread. The "Nose Era" of Iron Man lasted from Iron Man #68 (June 1974) to issue #85 (April 1976). According to John Byrne, the artist who drew Iron Man's face too flat in the first place was George Tuska.