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Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers has been a driving force behind the creation of multi-media pronged author tours, Publishing Plus and more. Friedman has a 39-year career in publishing and is considered a mentor by many in the industry. Book Business Extra spoke with her in this exclusive interview. She shares insights behind her career accomplishments, motivation and advice to others. EXTRA: You are credited with creating the author tour in 1970 as a publicist who took cook and author Julia Child around to different store locations promoting her book. Can you explain the experience for our readers? FRIEDMAN: I actually

We've always known it's smart to collaborate. Now we're realizing it's stupid not to. This is one of the profound effects of the digital publishing revolution. Before the digital era, it was easy to talk about cooperation and teamwork, and then go about our business much as we always had. Graphic designers didn't have to care about how an editor did their work. Editors didn't have to care about production technology. The printer didn't care how the publisher created those stacks of repro, the publisher didn't care if the printer "fixed" mistakes found at the last minute. And those shadowy figures at the periphery of the