Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed By Clive Cussler with Craig ...

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He is my dearest friend, and since he left William Morris to launch his own agency almost twenty years
ago, our, only contract has been a handshake.
Ninety percent of what I have achieved through Dirk Pitt and his pals I owe to Peter Lampack. He is
an honest but tough negotiator who is widely respected throughout the publishing field.
The following year, I finishedVixen 03 and mailed it off to Peter in New York. Tom Ginsberg, whose
family had run Viking Press for several decades, also bought the new book and paid a generous
advance, perhaps believing I might become a popular author. Unfortunately, Tom sold Viking to Penguin,
a foreign publisher that overturned the old management. Two young hotshots (there's that word again)
were put in control and commenced to change the entire face of Viking Press. They alienated everyone in
sight. Established authors fled the house, including Judith Guest and Saul Bellow. The new corporate
chiefs felt that sinceVixen 03 had been purchased by the previous management, it wasn't their personal
property. They sent me out on a book tour with little or no advertising under less budget than Willie
Loman had selling neckties out of cheap hotel rooms. Ebenezer Scrooge spent money like a lottery
winner next to these guys. They put me on night flights so the airline would feed me. They booked me in
cheap hotels. The entire tour was chaos and confusion.
The smart thing after this kind of treatment was to flee the publishing house for another. But how?
They had dibs on my next book. A manifestation of Cussler's law is that everybody in their life has
accomplished something that will pay dividends eventually. It turns out I had knocked out a silly
manuscript on the Denver advertising follies right afterRaise the Titanic! as a catharsis to being fired.
It must have taken all of sixty days to write the farce before I threw it in a closet. The tale was calledI
Went to Denver but It Was Closed . Off, it went to Peter, who submitted it to Viking's editors.
The rejection was incredibly prompt, and, having satisfied our option agreement, we were free to take
the next Dirk Pitt book to another publisher. In this case, it was Bantam, which wanted to get into the
hardcover market. They boughtNight Probe! which I always consider as one of my better plots.
CRAIG DIRGO:So you landed at Bantam.