The Corner Office: He Did It

• What was the editorial/production process like for this book?
Kampmann:… We had a month to do it. We signed [the deal] on the 11th of August, and the books were shipped on the 12th of September, the day before “Oprah.” … We did it because this is a great little company, and the truth of the matter is, nobody dropped the ball. … To me, it showed what the potential of an independent publisher is …. We shipped 150,000 [copies] the first week, which was our [initial] printing, and we went back for one more printing of 50,000, [which] shipped in early October. And we got to No. 2 on the New York Times Best-Seller List.

• What did you learn from this experience from a publishing perspective?
Kampmann: It was the opposite of [learning from it]. I applied everything I knew to this particular book. … Here is an odd situation where a smaller publisher that most people had never heard of before was able to do exactly what the big publishers do. That’s because the people who work here, the older ones, almost all have come out of the big publishing companies and have gone through this innumerable times. I was previously head of sales for Simon & Schuster—yes, a long time ago, but I don’t think S&S has changed all that much.