Peter Mayer Quotes

United Kingdom, Publisher
March 28, 1936 – May, 11, 2018.

Peter Michael Mayer (March 28, 1936 – May 11, 2018) was a British-born American independent publisher who was president of The Overlook Press/Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc., a Woodstock, New York-based publishing company he founded with his father in 1971. At the time of Overlook’s founding, Mayer was head of Avon Books, a large New York-based paperback publisher.

Penguin became less of a publisher for all different kinds of people and increasingly became the paperback publisher for the best-educated people, those people who shopped at bookstores. That proved perhaps not only to be rather elitist, but it also proved not to be good business.

Peter Mayer
- People
- Good
- Different
I think the past need not be the dead past. If we get it right, with new books, the past can be a beacon for the future.

Peter Mayer
- Future
- Past

If you're a serious publisher, you publish books because they work. In other words, they are written well; the reader identifies with the characters. The context seems to be real whether he's writing about the French Revolution or the failure of Lehman Brothers.

Peter Mayer
- Work
- Writing
- Real
It is always a gamble to agree to publish something one has not yet read oneself.

Peter Mayer
When it comes to translation quality, it's not a question of accuracy but of nuance, especially in fiction. The prose has to read fluidly in fiction, and this is a completely different issue from literal accuracy.

Peter Mayer
I'm happy as a book publisher. I loved my 19 years being a C.E.O. I loved it to distraction, but I couldn't do it till I'm 80.

Peter Mayer
- Book
- Happy
Worthwhile books trouble our complacency, sharpening our minds and senses. Some are dangerous, and they, too, must be published.

Peter Mayer
- Complacency