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I've got lots of books sitting here that have never been published because nobody could make any marketing sense of them.

I'm always astonished when I go into Barnes & Noble at the number of people buying books, of course, but also at the variety of books they do buy and the extent to which they are not the big bestsellers.

'Harry Potter' created a generation of readers in an era when kids could have disappeared into the depths of the Internet. That's no small feat. Every book series owes J.K. Rowling a debt of gratitude.

There are a lot of wonderful books out there that aren't marketed properly, and readers who might love them never even know they exist.

New York publishing is about, 'What's the next Harry Potter? What's the next Twilight?' When I've approached people, I've asked, 'What is the book you've been dying to do, but New York won't do?' I want the books that they think won't sell - because I think they will.

I have spent many, many hours reading J.K. Rowling's work. I am a known 'Harry Potter' fan.

Obviously it makes a difference if an author has a public online profile of some sort, even just down to the level of having a moderately popular blog. Most books sell 5, 10, or 15 thousand copies. Most are midlist books. With those people, even a modest online presence can make a difference in sales.

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.

It seems the world of book publishing is constantly changing. Whether it was the rise of chain stores or their decline, or the digital revolution... fortunately, we have been able not only to adapt but to thrive.

The publishing industry has always wanted to make books as cheaply and as ephemerally as they could; it's nothing new.