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SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY PRESS Academic and Professional Communication SECOND AVENUE AT NINETEENTH STREET BIRMINGHAM
September 30, 1968
Hon. Julian Bond State Representative State Capitol Building Atlanta, Georgia
Dear Julian:
I am glad we got to know each other. Your ability and diversity and spark and potential for great leadership seem clearly promising to me.
I like you and respect your ability, your processes, your approach and your superb savoir faire - and you really should have a book. I was perfectly serious about this and am restating it so you will know this.
Bright ideas are not particularly uncommon but actually doing something is a pitifully rare event. So I would like to suggest to you the following course of action.
Send to me now copies of your four principal speeches. Write a scribbled memo on just one sheet of paper as a thumbnail critique of these speeches, noting three things:
First, what you consider the weaker points to be. Second, those you consider the strongest and most effective. Third, with or without regard to these particular speeches, please comment on the highlights yhou feel most important and most deeply believe in.
Step 2. I will assemble a single presentation from all these things, using your scibbled notations as guidelines for philosophy and chief purpose.
This draft I will sent to you. You go through it only once with the advantage of freshness and without the disadvantages of retracing, complex thinking and over-improvement. Make notes all over it, criticize yourself, criticize what I have done. Send it back. I will re-draft it and return it again to you. This time you can study it and look for refinements. But you must set yourself a short deadline. I'll send you postcards and call you on the telephone and we will get together all within a short period of time to make it happen. The purpose of the short time is not just to make it happen but to fight the loss of freshness and spark and personality and integrity that time and knit-picking and rationalizations seem to take away.
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September 30, 1968 Hon. Julian Bond Page two
Then we will re-draft it one more time and you can have a last minute look but unless something is really wrong or really important, you shouldn't make any more changes. Actually at this state it would be a galley proof. Then we will print the book in a good paperback with a good cover in a pretty good quality - like 10,000 at the minimum - and as economically as we can so a greater number of people can afford to buy it. Then together we will promote and distribute the book. For our part, what we lack in international experience and in high-powered wheeling and dealing, we will probably make up by being sincerely interested and really trying hard.
We will foot the whole bill because we believe in you and we believe it will be successful. If we are wrong, that's our tough luck - economically. If we are right, we will get all of our coats back first. After that we will split the hoped-for profit fifty-fifty. If it's really a winner you will come out mighty good and we will too. We will both deserve it for faith and risk and purpose and enthusiasm.
We don't mind making a fancy contract but we wouldn't want to make your book at all if we didn't believe in you or you in us. As far as I am concerned, if you are ready to go send me your speeches and the quick scribbled notes. While this is not a work of art, as either a letter of a contract, if you agree it is a clear basis of understanding, it's good enough for me.
Please let me know.
Sincerely, your friend, [signature] John C. Henley, III President
JCH:lmc