Q: What kind of books do you want to publish?
A: I publish some fiction, though I focus mostly on nonfiction in the genres of current affairs, science, psychology, history, biography, memoir, and sports. But, when I’m assessing a project, I think less about genre than I do about energy and intent. I want books with momentum which comes from both a propulsive narrative and an author’s desire to convince us of something. Every book I publish is underpinned by an argument, whether overt or covert. This is important to me because argument indicates and conveys passion. (Also, argument is itself a form of narrative, and helps in structural terms.) And I don’t need to agree with an author; I just need the author to make his or her points cogently enough to withstand a skeptic’s scrutiny.
More than anything else, I want to publish books that change people’s minds, whether by disproving some piece of conventional wisdom, or by alerting them to possibilities they didn’t realize were available to them. In my opinion, books are better than any other medium at altering our world-view, and that’s what I hope my books will do.
— Eamon Dolan is V.P. and Editorial Director of Eamon Dolan Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He has published such bestsellers Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Buzz Bissinger’s 3 Nights in August, Jerome Groopman’s How Doctors Think, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion.
Related: read a roomier 2paragraphs about Mr. Dolan here.
