PW met with Peter Mayer, CEO and president of the Overlook Press, at Overlook's new offices in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, to talk about his publication of Robert Littell's The Company.

PW: You're putting a lot of time and money into Robert Littell's new book, The Company—a big risk for a small publishing house.

PM: Yes, it's an enormous risk. The real risk began three years ago when I met Bob Littell. I had read all of his books, which were wonderfully reviewed and which sold well, but he hadn't had a big breakout book. I had the germ of an idea, which I gave Bob and he liked: basically that, when the Wall fell, it was the end of an era in spying, or seemed to be. And that there were these organizations—Mossad, the CIA, the KGB—tuned to a Cold War that was over almost instantaneously. But it is a big risk—and for him to take three years to write the book was a considerable risk.

PW: This must be an expensive book to produce.

PM: That's right. But it has come out as a stunning read. We didn't know, when Bob chose Afghanistan as one of his five areas of operation, what would happen later. So everything made the book timely but not exploitative, and we have built from there.

This has been an expensive book. We had three printings of the galleys. And we always had in mind that perhaps the main opportunity was to not look at this writer in terms of one book, but as the creator of a world, of an oeuvre, so we obtained the rights to his backlist.

PW: You're publishing The Company in a difficult market. Many lengthy books aren't selling as well as expected, and yet you're coming out with a book that's almost 900 pages. What is the key to making it a success?

PM: There's no going back now! I started out with a big idea. Bob went for it. We had to pay, in our terms, a large advance. He wrote a long book, but we always knew it would be long. You can't go back and do a small printing and worry. I agree with you that the biggest bestsellers have not sold as well, but this isn't the biggest bestseller in that context. This is an author who Americans are going to discover. When a book or an author bursts on your attention, all bets are off. I think people will feel part of this discovery, and will be happy that a smaller publisher can get it together professionally.

PW: And also that someone who's been writing for decades is getting his due.

PM: There's a charm to that—that after his 13th or 14th novel, finally something really happens.

PW: He wrote The Defection of A.J. Lewinter over 30 years ago.

PM: A really terrific book, which we'll be reissuing in the fall. We have already designed the jacket for his entire backlist.

PW: It's unusual to do backlist in hardcover.

PM: Well, my thinking is that The Company will win fans. I think that this jacket design will become well known and that a lot of people will remember these books. It's a major additional risk to me to fight for reviews on older books, but it's a good publishing story. A small company shouldn't think in cookie-cutter ways. In this case, if The Company works, this idea will work. It's going to be pretty exciting. I'm a gambler.

PW: How does this book fit in with the rest of your catalogue?

PM: We're thought of as a serious publisher, and we certainly like to publish commercial books. This is the highest end of commercial—in other words, this guy is a very, very good writer who is writing about serious things. We could have crashed the book and done this last fall. But we thought, if you're small, you have to get everything right.

PW: At what point will you be satisfied that your publishing campaign is a success?

PM: Well, I can only tell you, as a heavy smoker, that I promised the staff that if it makes the New York Times bestseller list, I would quit smoking.