Library of books. (Getty)
In the spring of 2016, after spending over a decade — my entire career — at the same Boston book publishing company, I began to look for a new job. I secured an interview and showed up with a portfolio of my best marketing campaigns. “These are all for novels,” the person interviewing me commented, examining first an ad, then a postcard, then a sticker, each showcasing in some way a fictional story.
“Fiction is sort of my specialty,” I said. She replied, “We don’t publish any fiction.” Needless to say, I did not get the job.
Four years later, I left my job at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to own and operate a bookstore, where I continue to champion fiction by putting it directly into readers’ hands. While I moved on, I thought the company was in Boston to stay.