It was his first day on the job in New York, and he had looked at an important appointment: a best-selling author Dan Brown in the New past. It’s June 2008, Markus Dohle, then 39 years old, had just become the new chief of Random House, the largest book publisher in the world. Since then, he meets again and again with authors, even if the will, of course, supervised by the publishers and editors. “This is one of the most beautiful pages of my work,” he says.

Some of the authors are prominent, such as John Grisham or Jamie Oliver, some of them are very prominent, such as Michelle Obama . She has published in the past year, her autobiography, “Becoming”, of the, in the meantime, ten million units were sold. “It exceeded our wildest expectations,” says Dohle. Or Barack Obama; former President, is working on his memoirs. Jackdaw wants you to appear in the course of this year, the pressure he can’t make the famous author but that would be counterproductive. But he hopes that Barack Obama ends up as his wife a Bestseller. “That would be sure to enjoy the two,” he says and grins. 65 million dollars he had paid to the Obama’s for world rights to two books and a lot of criticism. But the investment is worth it.

the World’s biggest publishers

referred to As a jackdaw, in 2008, his office on Broadway, was the publisher in a crisis. His calling by Bertelsmann, the majority owner, from Germany, was a shock for the conservative American publishing industry: An unknown and in their shirtsleeves emerging German should lead to the well-known company? But he managed it: He created a kind of Renaissance of the book business, if also including successes such as the erotic novels “50 Shades of Grey”. He continued to E-Books, and built the world’s leading Position.

It is an amazing career: he was born in 1968 in Westphalia to the world, studied industrial engineering and joined 1994 in the case of Bertelsmann. He through the value chain of the book ran backwards: First, he oversaw the delivery of, and trade in, then he was for the Printing of books responsible. Now he is the most important publishers in the world. In the past year, he adopted the American citizenship, just in time, so that his daughter Julia was able to go to the world Cup in women’s football. She is the goalkeeper of the us U-20 national team.

Impressed by Michelle Obama

If Dohle told him to note his enthusiasm, he is rowing then upset with the poor, his voice is unbelievable. He is a good seller, quickly he has Superlative at Hand, the book of Michelle Obama about having “the potential to be the greatest memoirs of all time,” he says. He had only read the book and then the audio version, read by Michelle Obama, listened to mostly in the car. He did seven times, and had tears in his eyes, says Dohle. Audio books could generally catch up to and to E-Books. And ever jackdaw to be optimistic: “The Hunger for great stories more than ever.”

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 31.03.2019, 20:14 PM