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

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and made them a considerable sum of money. Peter told them in no uncertain terms their train had
jumped the track. Then they came back with the same royalty payment as before. I knew deep down
inside that this ridiculous petty haggling was due to the lunch.
CRAIG DIRGO:So it was time to switch publishers again?
CLIVE CUSSLER:It was time. Peter and I decided to throw the book on the open market. Michael
Korda of Simon & Schuster offered a much higher amount than Bantam, and I changed publishing
houses.
CRAIG DIRGO:Let's talk about the layout of your books and your habit of featuring your cars.
CLIVE CUSSLER:I've always had fun with the author photos on the books.
OnIceberg , I was pushed by a deadline, and since I was into diving but living in Colorado, I put on an
old wet suit and talked a friend into shooting a black-and-white photo of me from the waist up
surrounded by water. What nobody knew was that I was standing in a pond in the middle of a golf
course. On the jacket ofRaise the Titanic! I wore an Irish knit sweater that was about two sizes too
large and was taken up in the back by seven or eight clothespins.
It wasn't untilDeep Six that I began displaying the cars depicted in the books as driven by Dirk Pitt,
when in fact they were owned by me.
I thought, and still do, that readers would rather see the car while I stood in the background than some
enhanced photo of my ugly mug taken when I was ten years younger. When they were doing the cover
design forDragon , it occurred to me that since they were printing four colors on the front of the jacket, it
would cost them hardly any more to print the back photo in color because it would be on the same print
run. You learn these things in advertising.
To make certain the photo is first-rate quality, I've always had Denver photographer Paul Peregrine
shoot the photo, while Errol Beauchamp, who owns a commercial art studio, does the overlays and has
the type set that reads, "Clive Cussler with Dirk Pitt's ... year and make of car."