Perminder Mann is CEO of UK & International for Simon & Schuster, a role she stepped into in May 2024 after eight years as Group CEO of Bonnier Books UK. In this episode, Perminder traces an unlikely path to the top of publishing—from a working-class immigrant family outside West London, where she didn’t own a book until she was 22, to special sales, a tour through the toy industry, and ultimately the corner office. She talks about elocution lessons, flexibility as a philosophy, and what she is doing at Simon & Schuster to build a culture where difference is celebrated rather than managed around.

Bob Carrigan is the CEO of Audible, the world’s leading audiobook platform. In this episode, Bob describes Audible’s extraordinary growth and the company’s ambitious vision to make every book available as an audiobook in every language. He discusses the pandemic’s effect on listening habits, the landmark multicast production of the Harry Potter series, Audible’s new “Story House” pop-up in New York, the role of AI in expanding global catalogs, and the company’s deep roots in the economic renaissance of Newark, New Jersey.

Ruth Dickey is the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation—the organization behind the National Book Awards, now in its 77th year. In this episode, Ruth shares the foundation’s new five-year strategic plan, which will expand programming at a moment when many arts organizations are retrenching, including providing millions of free books in public housing communities, awarding teacher fellowships in book-banning hotspots, and streaming the National Book Awards.

Michael Carlisle is a co-founder of Inkwell Management, one of the most respected literary agencies in the business. Born of publishing parents, he became a human rights lawyer first, before he found his way to the William Morris Agency, then built his own agency before forming Inkwell Management. From William Styron to Elin Hilderbrand, Michael has been in at the beginning on an amazing set of authors and books. This episode gives you a look inside the life and career of a fascinating literary agent.

Brendan Curry has spent 24 years at W.W. Norton—the largest and oldest employee-owned publishing company. Norton is renowned for nonfiction and higher education publishing. In this episode, we discuss the rise and recent challenges of serious nonfiction, exploring how political upheaval, cultural fatigue, and fragmented digital media environments have reshaped readers’ engagement with big-idea books.

Miwa Messer is the executive producer and host of Barnes & Noble’s beloved podcast “Poured Over,” which has released over 650 episodes in the last 5 years. Our conversation covers her journey in publisher publicity and brick and mortar bookselling, and the significant changes in book format and book discovery along the way—including events, podcasting, social media, and more.

Jon Anderson has been President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s since 2009, after a career in both publishing and bookselling that began at age 16 at a B. Dalton mall store in South Dakota. His journey through Barnes & Noble, Penguin, and Perseus to his current position is one marked by creativity, humor, and iconic books and brands, from Mad Libs to Nancy Drew.

Terry Finley is the President and CEO of Books-A-Million, a chain of over 200 bookstores in 30 states. In this episode he describes the dramatic changes in book retailing since the late 1970s, when department stores and small mall stores were major booksellers, through the superstore era and to today’s marketplace with online retailers and social media influencers.

(For full transparency: Books-A-Million’s parent company, Anderson Growth Partners, is a minority investor in Open Road.)

In a 50-year publishing career, Michael Jacobs has been at the center of a number of explosive worldwide publishing phenomena, including Harry Potter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He talks about the lessons of blockbuster publishing, the joys of poetry, finishing his college career at 67, his new venture, Galpón Press, and its first book, The Woodcutter's Christmas.

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Dominique Raccah founded Sourcebooks in Chicago in 1987 and has turned it into the fastest growing, and now the largest, independent book publisher in the United States. This episode covers how she built an innovative company and a culture that seems to uniquely balance supporting authors, understanding readers, and using data to make decisions.