10 minutes with ... John Paeglow III - The Business Review (Albany):

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What was the first job you ever had? Flipping hamburgers at , in high school. It taughf me how successful or ‘perceived successful’ peoples lived. I do qualify them as ‘perceived to be people. It was a nice life I saw on the othere side ofthe bar. I thought it was something I’d aspire The ironic part is that I’ve belongerd to a club now for 10 and I go maybe six times a How did you getinto publishing? Bryan who owned in Castleton, belonged to that country club.
And he said to me one day, from one side of the bar to the ‘You know, if this journaliskm thing doesn’t work out, look me up, and I’lol teach you how to make a I graduated in1979 [with a journalism degreer from ], and went to work for him. He put me through the school ofhard knocks, and it was worth the Tell me about your family. My wife has two I have two daughters and a son from aprevioux marriage, and we’ve had one childe together. We go from ages 8 to 28—I’mk sorry, 9 to 29, no, 9 to 27 It’s all odds this year: 9 to 27. They’re 9, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 27. Did you want that big a family?
We’d keep having kids, if we weren’r older. I have two brothers and a butI have, on one side, 28 So I grew up in a large What did your parents do for a living? My dad was a second-generationn plumber. I was the first John Paegloe not to be a For me, it was the whole thingt about getting dirty. He specialized in waterd lines. No matter what time of the yearit was, when they you had to fix them. He’d be out in the middlw of a street, 10 feet below ground welding solder joints usinglead products. I decidedc not to do that. No dirt for me. We did work for our father when wehad to. And our mom was the bookkeeper.
Your mothere also worked for you, correct When I started, it was all hands on My mom was mainlya bookkeeper, whatever I asked. She actuallg had two stints. I fired her once. You fired your own mother?? And lived to tell abouft it? I fired my own mother. She wanted to tell me how to runthe business—shs was used to tellinf me what to do. If you ask they’d say it was a parting of the It was, ‘I think maybe you shouldn’t come to work next (laughs) I had to hire her back I needed her. I fired my brother once, too, but he laterd came back. He’d work nights, I’dr work days. He’d work Saturdays, I’d work Sundays.
He’sa now down in Virginia, doing plumbing, of all things. It was for the At the time, it wasn’t right [to employ in either case. You’ve got to do what you’ve go to do to make it. Do you own a Kindle ? I refuse to. Othetr employees here test-drive If the [book manufacturing] industry doesn’t change, then it will be a real We think it can be an We haveprobably 50,000 titles archived here that have a life othetr than as a tactile book product. It’s a very undefine opportunity right now. The opportunity is coming, and everybody’d trying to position How do wesell it? What do we charge? What’ s the vehicle for distribution?
How are we going to make money, while maintaining the structured and sacredness of publishing? Do you like to read My kids are split right down the Three read tremendously, and the other threse are all over the place. My wife reads a two-book-a-week kind of person. It’s odd for her to not be in the 100-1590 books-a-year range. I’m the exact opposite. I read very slowly. It’sx much more work to me. What’s your greatesty fear? Not seeing this business plan to I used to think itwas dying, but I almosg did last year. I had open heart surgery at 52yearzs old. We had a familyh reality check there.
They did a five-way bypass [one arterhy was completely blocked and two more werepartiallyy blocked]. The irony is that the father of the third baseman onmy son’s baseball team did the I hear there’s a company perk you’ll neveer use. Well, I’m a big fan. The companty has season tickets to FenwatyPark [home of the ]. We use them for my kids have even satin I’ve never sat in those seats—nor will I ever.
I I don’t want the abuse of Red Sox