Within a few weeks after I began publicity clerkin' at New American Library, however, it became obvious that, by the mid-1970s, the most power within its office, in determining which manuscripts were to be published, promoted and publicized most, was held--not by its culturally-straight, white upper-middle-class female editorial director--but by its culturally-straight and less intellectual white upper-middle-class male sales department executives.
And because the manuscripts most likely to be marketed commercially most profitably as paperback books, were those that tied-in to already-produced media conglomerate movies, television shows or to mass media celebrities, or were those manuscripts most likely to be adapted into a Hollywood movie or commercial television show, those were the kind of manuscripts that NAL's sales department executives most wanted to see NAL accept and publish.
So even if the New American Library's editorial director may have wanted NAL/Signet to be into publishing manuscripts of a more enduring and higher literary quality than what it published in the mid-1970s, it's likely that the intellectually low-brow NAL male sales department exeutives would have blocked her from doing so; since the paperback book publishing firm's male sales department executives had little interest in literature and evaluated writers' manuscripts solely on the basis of whether or not they would increase NAL's annual business revenue.
Among the only four other NAL employees I have vague memories of, after so many years, was a young white woman clerical worker whose desk was around 10 yards to the left from my desk, in some other department of the paperback book publishing office. Looking to be in her early 20s, she still dressed up for work each day in a culturally-straight way; and, despite it being in the mid-1970s, still never came to work casually dressed in slacks, or even less-casually in pant-suits,--unlike most young white women clerical workers her age were then starting to do. But still, this young woman was likely to have been considered the most physically beautiful younger woman in the NAL office, by most men.
Despite her dressing in a culturally-straight way, because she was both a NAL clerical worker, like I was, and a younger woman whom I also considered physically beautiful, after I first noticed her, I, initially, hoped that she would be interested in perhaps occasionally chatting with me or getting to know each other.
But, despite both being stuck in clerical worker wage-slave slots at the same workplace, after I smiled at her and said "hi" one day when she walked passed my desk within the office, and she seemed to turn her head the other way and did not even say "hi" in return, the vibe I got from her was that I was definitely not the kind of guy she would ever be interested in conversing with or dating--even if she didn't already have a boyfriend (which, given her physical beauty, she likely already had). So no words were ever exchanged between this physically beautiful NAL clerical worker and me during the whole time I was publicity clerkin' at New American Library.
