Connor first met John Douglas in the fall of 1973, when both were living in New York City and seriously involved in science fiction fandom. John wasn't working in publishing yet, and Connor had just started to freelance as an illustrator and comic book writer. Neither of them could possibly have guessed that 32 years later they'd be teaming up — John still in New York, Connor in California — to try and make a little publishing history. But that's life for you: full of surprises.

Connor asked John to get involved because he knew John was just what the business needed: someone with great language skills and a strong sense of written structure, someone who was equally good with fiction and nonfiction, someone who could help guide and shape and direct the growth of the imprint at all levels. John, in turn, was looking for the chance to be an owner and a partner after more than two decades working for various large corporate publishers. It was a match made comfortable through 30 years' familiarity, and exciting through the discovery of deeply shared opinions and values. After a few discussions over dinner in uptown Manhattan, working out details ("This thing is never going to have an IPO, right? Promise me you'll never have an IPO.") there was nothing for it but to begin.

You can email John at johnrjdouglas@gmail.com.

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John Douglas has spent more than 20 years working as a staff editor in the publishing business.

Although he has been primarily associated with mass market publishing houses (Berkley, 1978; Pocket Books, 1978-1983; Avon Books, 1983-1995; HarperPaperbacks/HarperPrism, 1995-1999), where he acquired and edited hundreds of paperback original and reprint novels, he has also worked on many hard/soft projects and was an originating editor on hardcovers and trade paperbacks as well as calendars, postcard books, heavily-illustrated non-fiction titles, gift books, and other formats. He was involved in the launch of two Customizable Card Games: Imajica, based on the Clive Barker novel, and Alien vs Predator, derived from the two popular movie franchises. He edited both fiction and nonfiction. His fiction editing had a strong emphasis on genre titles with many SF, fantasy, and horror novels, as well as mysteries, thrillers, war novels, westerns, and some mainstream novels. The range of his work in non-fiction stretches from popular biographies to UFO books, military history to popular culture, computer books to specialized reference works.

He was as an Administrative Editor at Pocket Books where he worked with David Hartwell and helped launch the Timescape imprint. He published John M. Ford's first novels, including his World Fantasy Award-winning A Dragon Waiting, and he also worked on Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun (of which one volume was a Nebula Award-winner and all four volumes were award nominees); Gregory Benford’s Timescape (a Nebula Award-winner); Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; and books by Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, David Gerrold, F.M. Busby, Thomas M. Disch, Nancy Springer, Roger Zelazny, and Paul Preuss. He published Frank Herbert’s non-fiction book about home computers, Without Me You’re Nothing, and reprinted Ben Bova’s space-program nonfiction.

He left Pocket to become a Senior Editor at Avon Books, where he built the SF list to three mass market titles per month plus regular monthly hardcovers and helped launch the AvoNova imprint. Among the many authors he worked with there are Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, Katherine Kurtz, Jane Lindskold, Terry Bisson, Diana L. Paxson, Paul Park, Rudy Rucker, David Duncan, Stephen Lawhead, Damien Broderick, Michael Swanwick, Charles Pellegrino, John Cramer, Alexander Jablokov, Tim Powers (World Fantasy Award-winner Last Call), Paul J. McAuley, Joe Haldeman (six novels and collections, including a Hugo and Nebula Award-winner) and Roger Zelazny (more than ten books including the second series of five novels in his most popular series, Amber, and the award-nominated A Night in the Lonesome October). He published over a dozen novels by Piers Anthony including more than a half dozen New York Times bestsellers in the Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality series, as well as the first five paperback reprints of bestselling author Brian Jacques’s Redwall series. He acquired the first dozen mysteries by J.A. Jance, who has gone on to be a regular New York Times bestselling author, and he launched the SPQR mystery series by John Maddox Roberts. He also published several novels by crime writer James Ellroy. He was responsible for organizing a series of fiction and non-fiction reprints focusing on the Vietnam war and was, for many years, the editor who oversaw Avon’s distinguished program of reprint and original publications of Latin American fiction, including works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, Reinaldo Arenas, Marcio Souza, and many others. He edited a number of books by Zecharia Sitchin and was the editor on the #1 New York Times best-selling Communion, by Whitley Streiber, and its bestselling sequel Transformation. He published more than a dozen naval military histories by Edwin P. Hoyt and many more military histories in mass market and trade paperback, including a successful series on military blunders by Geoffrey Regan, and some of the successful and controversial works on the history of World War II by David Irving. He also published computer books, biographies, and Civil War histories.

From Avon he moved to become Executive Editor at HarperPrism, where he published work by William Shatner, Allen Steele, Robert Silverberg, Greg Egan, Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter, Stephen Lawhead, Elizabeth Hand, George Zebrowski, Walter Jon Williams, Pamela Sargent, Jack McDevitt, and Guy Gavriel Kay. He also organized and edited many tie-in and branded product publications including works derived from Independence Day (three books including novelization and junior novelization followed by a continuity novel program); Godzilla (three books, including a novelization and a Making of book); Lost in Space (seven projects including novelization and junior novelization, a Making of book, two postcard books, and the cultural history illustrated trade paperback Lost in Lost in Space by Mark Cotta Vaz); The X-Files television series (continuity novels, episode guides, and other projects); and The Crow. He also handled several novels by thriller writer Gerald Seymour, two further non-fiction books by Whitley Strieber, and other non-genre titles.

He left HarperCollins in late 1999, after being merged out of a job following a corporate amalgamation. Since then he has run his own business as a consulting editor, working on a wide variety of projects for various authors, publishers, and internet companies.

You can email John at johnRD@conlanpress.com.