Over the course of eighteen months, the team worked to assemble The Black Book. With the heavy lifting done, Morrison began to ramp up prepublication promotions by contacting 175 radio stations with Black programming and every Black Writer, celebrity, and news outlet she thought would be helpful. She released the Cosby spots to Black radio stations first. Then, she sent review copies to everyone from Barbara Halliday at the Detroit Free Press to Don Cornelius at the popular TV dance show Soul Train.

You could have written some lousy, sensational, sexy book and you’d probably not have this problem,’ she remarked. “(Except some other editor would have to publish it.) but you wrote a good one and it is slowly but surely finding its readership (almost 2,000 people!).” Her first novel, she often repeated to authors she worked with, sold a mere three thousand copies before gaining traction. Great reviews of a first novel could set the stage for more sales for a second novel. But Look What They Done to My Song— the quiet, little book she loved— was the only book they would publish together.

Durham resurfaced in late February 1975 with the Zaire chapter and the revision of the induction chapter. He and Morrison were on speaking terms again. And yet another contract addendum was signed. They had a final editorial meeting, and this time, Durham met all the deadlines Morrison set. He and Morrison agreed to spend the whole month of May working together in New York to review the entire manuscript. As quickly as Morrison suggested edits, Durham made them. They finally had a full draft. When Morrison got the news that the book had been chosen as the main selection for the Literary Guild, she announced to all that any changes to the uncorrected galleys needed to be on her desk by August 22. A version of the galleys was already with the proofreader and copy editor. Changes Durham suggested and those of the proofreader and copy editor would be made, and the type size needed to be enlarged. Otherwise, the book was ready to go. The plan was to print one hundred thousand copies— the largest first printing of the list for the year.

Importantly, The Greatest was financially successful. In addition to the Literary Guild serial sale, the firm also sold serial rights to several major outlets, including Book Digest, Newsweek, The New York Times, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. Disappointingly though, it did not make the American bestseller lists. While it was on the large chain bookstore B. Dalton’s list for several weeks, the bookseller’s list was different from a general readers’ list. That list was made up of sales at places like Scribner’s, Brentano’s, or Double-day, the stores that reported to the bestseller list. The Greatest sold more than ninety-four thousand copies from its first printing but largely at places where Black people bought books, none of which were among the standard booksellers whose sales were counted. In this sense, the disconnect between the actual number of books sold and the way reporting declared books bestsellers helped Random House see how inherent biases made it impossible to rely on reported information to determine non-white groups’ interests and book-buying tendencies. Morrison’s point that well-done so-called “Black books” that received the right kind of marketing and promotion could sell as well as any other books had been made yet again. She did not need the validation of a bestseller list to prove it.

When Graham came across a particularly good one, she’d write “nugget” alongside the golden find. They did this for years, until they’d accumulated a great big pile of gleaming nuggets. Only then— after six years of culling documents, doing interviews, making transcriptions, and sifting for nuggets— did Graham make the definitive decision to write the book, which would take her another eight years to finish and publish. Graham would receive a Pulitzer Prize for her book at age 80.