AK: That’s great, that’s really inspiring.
DE: There was no publisher who was going to allow us to do what we wanted to do.
AK: Right.
DE: Our books have a kind of closet appreciation in major publishing, and so we would run into people who knew who we were. David Crosby has a blurb on the back of The Ethical Slut (2nd Edition) because he heard about it from somebody else we had asked for a blurb from. He actually contacted us and said “I want to see galleys of the second edition, yes I’m very excited, I’d like to write you a blurb.”
AK: That’s a fantastic bit.
DE: And the editor at the time, at the publisher, thought no one knew who David Crosby was! I was like, “excuse me?” I laugh from the fact that both he and Neil Young have written some of my favorite songs about this subject. They [the editors] said no one under twenty six would recognize Crosby, and my then partner was twenty six and she said “I know who David Crosby is! Don’t be ridiculous!”
The person who owned Ten Speed Press obviously knew the book. When he heard we were looking for a second edition he said yes, but then retired and sold the press to Random House. Suddenly we had a bunch of editors who we were working with who had no idea what the book was about.
AK: That had to be frustrating.