If Morrison used the publication of Tales at Doubleday as a point of note, its early low sales numbers could hurt her case. Unqualified impudence was the approach in the end. Bambara had a track record for selling books, she was a talented writer who had well-crafted stories published in reputable venues, and she was willing to accept a small advance. The latter point was crucial. The publisher had nothing to lose, Morrison argued, and everything to gain. If the collection did well, financially or critically, it would be a win. If it did not, the loss would be so minor that the opportunity to add Bambara to Random House’s roster of authors would offset the loss. No one could argue with this rationale. By then end of the week, the contract was being drafted, even though every publisher, including Random House, was reticent, if not obstinate, about offering a writer a contract for a short story collection.

Their best shot at it would be to work closely on the revisions in a focused way without interruption.

Morrison had just moved into her new home on the Hudson, and Bambara joined her there for three days as they went back and forth with edits and revisions to ready the book for publication. “She’d write and I’d edit some,” Morrison recalled

She would go upstairs and work, then she’d run down the stairs and say, “What about this?” Then I would sit down and go over that, then she’d run back up the stairs. It was the most amazing— but certainly extremely efficient, for us— way to do it, because she was so clear. She could focus immediately. I would just have to grunt and point and she knew exactly what I was suggesting.

Morrison’s experience working with Chase-Riboud was instructive. Morrison knew that having a publicity and promotion plan was an important aspect of how well a book sold. But never again would she assume an author would cooperate with her plans without explicitly saying so. She also sharpened her thinking around identifying a primary and secondary market for books she would acquire. Chase-Riboud’s social capital among white cultural and artistic aficionados did not translate into a book buying public. And alternative paths to the book’s success were unavailable for different reasons. Authors needed champions beyond their editors and publishers. If they were not lucky enough to enlist influential supporters, they certainly had to avoid making powerful enemies. The same politics that yielded enthusiastic endorsements could result in quiet condemnation, which could be worse than loud and damning disapproval. The latter might at least get the book some attention.

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.

It would make all the difference in terms of getting the attention of reviewers, critics, and readers alike. Morrison was prepared to delay the book’s publication for months if needed, in fact, to avoid sending it out naked— that is, without the right quotes from the right people announcing the book’s achievement.