Everything Worthwhile Is Done With Other People: An Interview with Alessandra Bastagli, Publisher of One Signal/Simon & Schuster

"I’m a believer that if you have a clear brand, where everybody knows what kinds of books the name on the spine stands for, you are more likely to survive because your value is clear and singular"

Leonora Carrington, Self-Portrait

I decided to interview Alessandra Bastagli, the publisher of One Signal, an imprint at Simon & Schuster, after she responded to one of my submissions by saying, “Are you sure the author would want to be published here, or would he be happier at a more neutral-seeming imprint?” I appreciated the question, both for its solicitousness towards my client and for its candor. It also points to what is unusual about Alessandra and One Signal. Aside from the explicitly politically conservative imprints, most publishers maintain an air of neutrality. Of course, neutrality is also a position, as is deciding what falls within its boundaries. Alessandra is up to something else. In the interview below, she gets at what One Signal looks for in its writers and books, and what she hopes that brings to readers. She is as candid as ever.

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Let’s start with how you ended up in publishing.

I’ve been in publishing for twenty-five years, over the course of which I’ve had nine jobs. My career has been a combination of good luck, bad luck, and slowly making progress over the years. I started out as an intern, where I was hired for my first job, and went on to work at Indie presses—big and small —and at imprints at the Big Five in corporate publishers. In between, I also worked in online news at Al Jazeera America, which I loved. …

Did you come in as a publishing intern knowing you wanted to work in publishing?

Not at all. I’m an economist, and had just graduated from university in Milan. I had gotten into the London School of Economics to continue my studies but I was interested in book publishing because I loved Virginia Woolf and knew she had started a publishing house. I was basically just curious, and thought I could do it for a summer before moving to London. Unfortunately, none of the Italian publishers would give me an internship because I had studied economics– they thought it was strange that an economist would be interested in literature.

SoI branched out and started applying for internships in New York—and this was so long ago, I sent my resume and cover letter by fax. —I got my first interview with Arcade Publishing because I speak three languages and they published a lot of books in translation. They gave me the internship and three weeks in, I was offered a job. I deferred my start date at the LSE for a year but within a matter of weeks I realized publishing was my vocation. So I never went to London.

But you had not intended to work in American publishing or even in the US?

Not at all. I was crashing at someone’s house, in their spare room, and then it became my whole life.

So how does your perspective as someone who grew up and was educated in Europe affect how you publish and how you think about American publishing?

Because of my languages, I started out doing a lot of books in translation and attending the Frankfurt Book Fair. At the time, only a handful of American editors could read more than one language, so I was in the position of engaging with European publishing. It also struck me at the time, that if you looked at the bios of authors being published in Europe, everyone had degrees in literature—not just the Italians, but the Germans and the French. You had to have some kind of formal literary credential to write a book. Whereas at Arcade, in New York, you had all kinds of people writing books. I remember publishing a novel written by a bus driver. It was in line with how I was treated by Italian publishers as someone who had an economics degree, whereas at Arcade, they just thought it was great that I could read submissions in multiple languages. So I thought that American publishing was much more democratic, because they gave me a chance.

I would guess that most of my readers who are aspiring writers would think that we have a deeply undemocratic system, and there’s a lot of gatekeeping. Are you saying that it’s worse elsewhere?

In time, I realized that a lot was missing from American publishing as well. For example, coming from Europe, there was so much guilt in trying to reckon with the Holocaust.That translated into a lot of fiction and nonfiction books about or by the Jewish community and culture. When I came here, I expected the same thing would be true for Indigenous Americans, and I was shocked to discover that American publishers had done nothing even comparable to reckon with the genocide here. I also thought there was a weird disconnect between America’s racist history, and how people talked about themselves, like everyone was innocent. My Black friends and colleagues said one thing about their family histories – who owned their grandparents, what kind of labor they were forced to do etc – – and my white friends and colleagues said they were Scotts-Irish or something – like there had been no slave owners or overseers, like no one had fought for the South during the Civil War. This made me think a lot about the Italians and the French, where everyone was a partisan and nobody was a fascist, but clearly somebody was. My grandparents were. And if we hadn’t talked about it openly in my family, I don’t think I’d be the person I am today, with the beliefs I hold today.

As an editor, in time, I realized that there are clearly huge holes in American culture and I decided to publish into them—-those subjects that people might be grappling with but that are getting whitewashed or ignored or overlooked by society.

Do you think your training in economics affects, or affected how you approached books when you first started?

University taught me how to study, and I am comfortable with math – which in publishing mostly means P&Ls and spreadsheets – but what really helped was that in Italy, exams are both written and oral. This helped me even more than my understanding of spreadsheets—I had to learn how to speak in public, which many students in America don’t get as much because exams are usually written. In Italy, you would have to, say, prove a theorem, orally to a statistics professor – mine in particular was really mean, – with all your peers sitting in the room watching you blush and stutter.

I’ve seen some of my colleagues in publishing really fret about speaking up in meetings and doing sales presentations. That’s one of the things people don’t realize about editors—you really have to learn how to speak, how to sell your books both in writing and orally, sometimes in front of a crowd.

So what does an editor do that involves a lot of public speaking?

You’re selling all the time. You’re selling yourself to agents and authors, whether it’s at lunch or drinks or at a book fair. You’re pitching yourself and your imprint and your colleagues to agents and authors, though in some contexts it can be a pretty small group, so maybe you’re okay with that.

The bigger groups, which can be scarier, are there for internal launch presentations or sales presentations, which become increasingly larger in terms of audience. So it starts maybe with your immediate imprint, and then it’s the editorial staff plus marketing and publicity, and then it’s editorial, plus marketing and publicity, plus sales, plus subrights, and that can be hundreds of people.

When I was a grad student, I taught a lot, and I really believe that teaching writing and literature was one of the skills that most helped me as an agent, because it’s basically public speaking, with the added burden that your audience might not give a shit about writing and literature.

You have to make them really care.

You have to convert them into readers and that’s so much of what I do as an agent. So speaking of selling yourself, could you tell us a bit more about One Signal?

One Signal was founded six years ago as a feminist imprint of sorts, but I’ve always thought very intersectionally about these issues, and I don’t think it made sense to silo the imprint’s mission that way.

You mean in being exclusively focused on feminism as opposed to other “isms?”

Yes, but also, by the time I came on in February 2024, there were all kinds of writers writing about all kinds of subjects on the list. The brand had lost focus a bit, which can happen. I’m kind of obsessed with imprints having a clear brand, perhaps because I experienced working at an imprint that was trying to imitate everyone else and the brand wasn’t very clear. When the parent company needed to make cuts, they just shut that imprint down. Because it wasn’t really adding anything unique to the company’s portfolio.

I’m a big believer that if you have a clear brand – whether it’s FSG, Haymarket, Metropolitan, One World or Norton – where everybody knows what kinds of books the name on the spine stands for, you are more likely to survive because your value is clear and singular.

Is it that readers know what the brand is? Or do you think it’s more for people inside the industry—agents, booksellers, media?

Ideally, everyone you mention, and authors too. I saw this when I was at Nation Books. Because the Nation name meant something – thanks to the magazine – people came to our books knowing the progressive brand, knowing that they would find quality investigative journalism and writers who consistently spoke truth to power. That was very clear to everyone and I always thought it was a huge asset for us both within the publishing industry, and with booksellers, librarians, writers and readers – we really built a community.

For those who haven’t looked up what One Signal is, could you tell us a bit more about what you look for in a One Signal author?

In effect, we’re drawn to authors who write with a sense of purpose. And of course, as with all publishers, prose is king. You have to be able to tell a great story. But we’re also looking for someone who is writing with a sense of urgency, who has something – a story, an idea, a recommendation – to share that’s really important, something that speaks to the moment that we’re in, or to issues that people have been grappling with for years. And this gives us a lot of freedom in terms of category – it can take the form of a memoir, a parenting book, investigative journalism or history. But there has to be something irresistible that’s driving the writer.

I would say that very few writers think that they don’t have that. And clearly you also have a political point of view.

It’s funny—that’s why I like taking author meetings, because not all authors have that fire in the belly. You need to feel in the meeting like this person is going to go crazy if they don’t write this specific book. That’s your best chance of having a great book.

I also meet a lot of writers who clearly want to write to become famous writers. They dream about their book tour. How do you determine on the level of the text if a writer is thinking about something more than their own personal and professional advancement?

I think about something (Norton editor) Alane Mason used to tell me about memoirs, which is the difference between the “I” memoirs and the “eye” memoir. I’ve always leaned towards the latter, toward authors who aren’t just writing about themselves but who use their experiences and knowledge to present readers with a whole new world or perspective or who invite readers to imagine new possibilities or have more empathy for others who are entirely different from themselves.

I thought of interviewing you because of this exchange we had when I was on submission. I asked if you wanted to see something, and you asked very astutely, “Does this journalist want to be published by a loud progressive imprint, or maybe by somewhere more neutral?” And I’d love you to say something more about that, about your embrace of non-neutrality.

This came up a lot at Nation Books—some journalists didn’t want to publish with us because of the Nation brand, which was proudly on the left. I can understand that some journalists, especially at a time like this, might want their publisher to be perceived as neutral and apolitical, as it would align with the concept of the unbiased, neutral journalist.

To me, personally, pursuing neutrality in a time of genocide, autocracy and fascism is simply untenable. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, or know what to tell my children. How can you be neutral at a time like this and interact honestly with indie booksellers, librarians and teachers who are actually on the front lines of this moment – they are literally putting their physical wellbeing and their livelihoods on the line in the name of free speech and upholding the truth. Whether it’s a bookseller getting beaten up or doxxed for hosting drag queen story hour or for selling books about Palestine, or a teacher or librarian losing their job for having MAUS or GENDER QUEER on their shelves. They are the ones who are really taking risks.

I want to publish the kinds of books that people can build community around, communities that will come out and support the indie booksellers, teachers and librarians in their neighborhoods. Books that – at a time where the news media is being eroded – present counter-narratives, raise awareness and allow readers to start conversations, to share that yes, none of this is ok, and we will not be gaslit. We saw this work with Liz Pelly’s book on Spotify, Jaz Brisack’s book on union organizing, Leah Litman’s book on the Supreme Court and Irin Carmon’s book on pregnancy in America. Some journalists might be nervous about that level of engagement, and I understand it when we look around at what’s happening. Look what happened post Charlie Kirk—

What do you think specifically they are nervous about?

I think they are understandably nervous about appearing biased and losing their jobs or their book contracts for “taking sides” in a political debate. I realize that, as a publisher, I’m in a position of extreme privilege. I can be very outspoken about my views and at the same time, the public doesn’t know I exist, unlike an author or a bookseller. As editors, we’re not the stars, our job is to support our authors and help them shine. Which is why I feel like my writers, the ones who are ok being published at an overtly progressive imprint, should feel free and safe to openly share their stories and their beliefs. Much like conservative authors do at overtly conservative imprints.

You’re saying that a writer might be nervous that being in your list where people are very outspoken about their views might put their own jobs at risk.

Yes, or because someone’s news editor might say, “Hey, look, your publisher is working with X as well, that will hurt our newspaper.” Look, this has never happened to any of my writers, but post Charlie Kirk, anything is possible. At the same time, I have seen some writers, say queer or trans writers, being published at a “neutral” imprint that also publishes books that challenge, threaten, or even deny their very existence.It’s incredibly painful and difficult for those writers too. And that wouldn’t happen to anyone at One Signal. I like to think that knowing that your fellow authors aren’t actively out to get you or to limit your freedoms in books published by your same imprint – but that on the contrary they support your work – creates a sense of safety, community and solidarity that frees up some space and ease for them to bring their whole true selves to the publishing process.

That’s what’s so scary about this moment—the self-censorship and the self-silencing caused by very reasonable worries. It can sound paranoid, but we’ve seen it, and I understand the worry that you’ll find yourself on an Instagram carousel alongside a book that is critical of the President or of Charlie Kirk, and next thing you know, you’re doxxed.

I mean, that’s how fascism works, right? But I want to take a page out of a book of our amazing indie booksellers and librarians who are getting doxxed, and who are putting themselves at risk for putting books on display. For me at this moment, I know I’m speaking from a position of privilege, because I’m the publisher of my own imprint, my boss supports me, and I’m also like a white lady who has health insurance and two passports. Do I think what I say and do might cost me my job at some point? Maybe! Who knows where this ends. It’s in part a question of what you want to do with your privilege.

I think about that a lot, and of course every time I take on a risky book, I have to ask myself if it’s worth the risk. I can’t act as if risk doesn’t exist. I have a higher risk tolerance for a number of reasons—because of where I work, because of my past success, because I don’t have kids, which is huge. But then in other ways, I’m under different pressures, because I’m kind of a one woman band in terms of keeping the lights on in this home. But ultimately, every day, I have to continue to make choices so that my list reflects my values.

Absolutely. Otherwise I couldn’t sleep at night, but again, this is why it has so much to do with privilege, and maybe part of this is because I have been laid off before or forced to quit. I know a lot of this is luck, but I’ve always landed on my feet. Maybe it took nine months and it got really dicey money-wise, and I didn’t have health insurance for my kids, but somehow I landed on my feet.

I often think that the effect of growing up with money being so tight is that I never expected to live in the kind of relative luxury I live in now, so I know I don’t actually need all of this. [Gestures maniacally around her nice apartment.] I certainly didn’t go into publishing for it. When I was starting out as just an underpaid assistant in publishing, I made more money than my father did at the time. Perhaps I’m comfortable taking a certain amount of risk because if I were to make less money, I know that I would still have a very good life compared to how my parents lived at my age.

The other thing is because we’ve been in this industry so long, we have a certain level of access. If we’re not using that to foreground stories and writers we want to see published, then what are we doing? Maybe if we were living in a different country, at a different time, then maybe it would be ok to think more coldly about financials or our own profit margins. But we are living in a country that is increasingly fascistic and despotic. Why wouldn’t we use the access that we’ve accumulated over the course of decades to actually do something about it? We are now the gatekeepers!

And even if the books don’t necessarily sell that much—I often think about this having worked at very small indies with limited resources—-the fact that even one person read that book and felt less alone or felt motivated to do something in their community—well, that is a huge achievement. It’s huge.

I also think that you never know what the long life of a book will be. As someone who did graduate work on the nineteenth century, I’m so glad for books that, perhaps in their lifetime, sold a modest amount of copies, but that years later were there for me to find. I often think about how I am publishing for the record.

And maybe you’re inspiring someone who’s gonna run for office ten or twenty years from now. You never know what one of the 5,000 people who bought a book is going to do with it. Zohran Mamdani cites Yanis Varoufakis as someone who influenced him. I published Yanis’ first book before he became the Greek Finance Minister, when he was just an Economics professor. Maybe our future mayor read that book?

In thinking about what you want to put into the world, I know you’re entrepreneurial about curating your list and you often reach out to authors. Can you talk a bit about that process and what you look for when you’re doing that kind of outreach?

I often worked for small indies where there was no money for advances so the only way to get books that you were excited about was to commission them yourself or be the first to reach out to a writer. Be first with an idea, be first to reach out to someone who is doing interesting work, be first to respond to an agent, read the proposal overnight, and get back to an agent immediately. Those were the tools we had, because we weren’t going to win any auctions. So even when I had money, I wanted to work like that as it’s incredibly satisfying.

When you develop a relationship with an author yourself, why would you still bring in an agent, especially as you might pay more for the book?

For both practical and selfish reasons, agents can be fantastic partners. They help an author figure out whether the contract is valid or not, they know what terms to negotiate and what terms are standard.

Again, it’s a question of privilege. Maybe an author doesn’t know anybody with a book contract or anybody with an agent, so if I can say, “Hey, here’s an agent who I really trust, who’s going to advocate for you, who is going to look at your contract and tell you what to ask for and will then be a partner throughout the process”—I think that’s only positive. A lot of the hack-y nonsense that happens in publishing happens to writers who, unfortunately, have a ton of talent but just don’t have access and end up with a terrible, checked-out agent who doesn’t actually serve them well. If we’re trying to make something more democratic, we need to pair those writers with a proper agent.

And because of my career, I’m just not naive about my prospects anymore. I might not be at an imprint forever, but if you have a good agent, as an author, that’s your partner for all your books, no matter what happens to the imprint, to the publisher, to your editor. I’ve seen it all in the past twenty-five years. You think you’re super safe, but the editors who’ve worked at the same imprint for their whole career are a minority. Though I hope I can grow old and die at my desk at One Signal, by jove.

While I worry that communicating to writers that editors are also vulnerable in their jobs will add to their already considerable anxieties, I hope it helps in building empathy for everyone involved in this system.

I was at an imprint that got shut down because the corporate ownership needed to make cuts. They gave all of us three days to pack up our offices and leave. We had no inkling that it was going to happen, but it happened. That’s just publishing. I can’t promise a writer I will be at this imprint forever. It’s not in my hands. So I think having a really solid agent who can step up and be a partner—if things do go south, for whatever reason, you still have your person.

I’m now paranoid I’m being too negative!

Well, do you want to end with some words of wisdom?

I’m very, very excited about my list. Even if you’re the CEO, there’s no way you’re going to have the ultimate power in for-profit book publishing, but I also think that you can get to a point in your career where you are confident enough in what you’re doing and what your books are capable of that you don’t have to compromise anymore on the ideas. And I think especially now that our industry and our society is under attack from all sides, working in solidarity with others and being able to live with your choices is really important. As Mariame Kaba’s father said to her, “everything worthwhile is done with other people.”

I am so lucky to have the support I have from my peers and colleagues, from readers, agents and indie booksellers, from my authors, my friends and family, and I’m going to keep doing what I am doing for as long as possible. You just have to do what you know to be the right thing, and then do it over and over again. If the book you believed in didn’t sell, if your imprint got shut down, whatever’s happening around you, you just have to keep doing the right thing.