If you're a reader of fantasy novels, there's a pretty good chance you're acquainted with Tor Books, the publisher behind series like The Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Ender's Game, The Stormlight Archive, and thousands of other notable series, including the extended Dune universe books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Tor is arguably the most prominent publisher of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, and has been for quite a while. If you read fantasy or science fiction at all, you've almost certainly come into contact with some of their books.
Despite how well known Tor is today, it had a relatively humble start, when founder Tom Doherty launched the business in 1980 as a way to publish more of the fantasy and science fiction stories he loved. Before that, Doherty had worked with several other publishers, including Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, and Ace. But with Tor Books, he was able to fully lean into his passion and changed the industry for good.
I've been reading Tor novels for many years, but I've never actually seen an interview with Doherty himself; he doesn't often step into the spotlight to talk about his publishing house. That makes this new video from Brandon Sanderson's company Dragonsteel Books all the more exciting. As part of their journey to print a run of The Wheel of Time leatherbound books, the Dragonsteel team sat down with Doherty to talk about his history with publishing the series, working with author Robert Jordan and his editor/wife Harriet McDougal, and more. It's a fascinating interview that is pretty much a must-watch for any fan of The Wheel of Time or fantasy in general:
In addition to this video, there's a wonderful written feature by Tayan Hatch over at the Dragonsteel Books blog, with extra details about Doherty's life and how he came to publish The Wheel of Time. I won't recount everything it says — I'd encourage you to go read the excellent work over there if you're interested — but a few fun highlights:
- Doherty was a chemical engineer, and was drafted and served in the U.S. military late in the Korean War. He read voraciously during his downtime in the army, and went on to work in the sales department at Pocket Books once his service was done. After that, he was offered a role running his own publishing imprint, where he hired Harriet McDougal, the future wife and editor of Robert Jordan. In 1980, Doherty left to start his own sci-fi and fantasy publisher, Tor Books.
- Before founding Tor, Doherty was an early champion of Frank Herbert's Dune, which he was given a manuscript copy of by a friend. He recommended it for publishing at Simon & Schuster when he was a sales manager. Simon & Schuster wasn't interested in publishing the book. Later, Doherty worked with Ace, where he was finally able to get a mass market paperback edition of Dune published. When Doherty started Tor Books, he eventually published the Dune successor books from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, as well as audiobooks of the original Dune novels.
- After Tor was founded, McDougal brought The Wheel of Time to Doherty's attention, calling him up at his New York office after she had read The Eye of the World and saying "I don’t know, Tom, you’ve got to read this right away. I don’t know if I’ve got the wife thing or if this is as good as I think it is—but I think this is a truly great book.” Doherty read it and agreed with McDougal that The Wheel of Time was something special, and the rest is history.
- Robert Jordan's real name is James O. Rigney Jr.; he's also written historical fiction under a different pseudonym, Reagan O'Neal. Doherty shares some interesting insights into Rigney's thought process for choosing that name: "Jim Rigney believed in having a brand name for the kind of book he wrote. So for historicals he picked Reagan O'Neal. But he didn’t want his historical brand name being used for fantasy. It was an entirely different kind of book, and he wanted people to know right away what it was...What it meant was we had this guy who had been a paperback bestseller, and we couldn’t even use that [track record]."
- Everything about publishing The Wheel of Time was a wild gamble. Doherty tried something extremely unconventional for the time by releasing the first two Wheel of Time books as large trade paperbacks rather than hardcovers, which were more common for new book releases. It paid off, with the sales from the second book doubling those of the first. Then for book three, The Dragon Reborn, Doherty turned things on their head again by releasing that one in hardcover, because he believed the series had grown enough in popularity to support the higher financial risk.
- The Wheel of Time is a long series, which can make getting new readers on board a challenge. Another very unconventional thing that Tor Books did to support the release of the seventh book, A Crown of Swords, is print a small novella-style sampler of the first 10 chapters from the first book in the series and giving them out at bookstores for free. Doherty believed no one would read those 10 chapters without needing to know what happened next. Tor gave out nearly a million copies of the free Eye of the World sampler.
- Doherty recommended Brandon Sanderson to finish The Wheel of Time after reading and enjoying the first Mistborn book. At the same time, Harriet McDougal had also been made aware of Sanderson because he wrote a moving eulogy for Robert Jordan after he died. Doherty said McDougal "really liked" Sanderson's tribute, and "thought it was kind of neat that I was sending her Mistborn, that this was the guy who was recommended.”
These are a few takeaways from this interview, but there are plenty more to be found in there. Give it a watch, and listen to Doherty explain it all in his own words. As a longtime fantasy reader, I found it really enjoyable to watch this 88-year old legend of the book industry look back on his life and career, as well as his journey with James Rigney and Harriet McDougal for The Wheel of Time. He's even got the original cover artwork painting for The Eye of the World framed, which you can see in the video.
The Wheel of Time leatherbound editions are "making a statement" to readers
The whole reason that Doherty did this interview is to reflect on The Wheel of Time as Sanderson's own company, Dragonsteel, is about to embark on a new journey with the series. Later this year, Dragonsteel will publish a deluxe leatherbound edition of the first book in the series, with the aim to put out one leatherbound a year until the entire saga is available. Leatherbound books are not typically printed by traditional publishers, because the cost to make them is very high and the cost for readers is even higher. But Dragonsteel has carved out a solid niche for itself by releasing leatherbound editions of Sanderson's own books. Moving on to The Wheel of Time is both a natural expansion for Dragonsteel's leatherbound business as well as a passion project to honor this series, which holds a special place in the hearts of Sanderson and many of his employees.
"When people see these leatherbounds, they know that the people involved in the publishing truly believe in the work," Doherty said. "They're making a statement that isn't normally made on a book. They're taking a risk and putting a lot of money into creating something because they truly believe in it...they believe this is something that deserves special treatment, that deserves to be passed on. You know, you create this beautiful — leather is strong — this beautiful, strong manuscript that people are going to really care about, and they're going to keep down the years."
If you'd like to find out more about Dragonsteel's Wheel of Time leatherbound project, the best way to stay up to date is to sign up for their newsletter.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.