It used to be that a publisher was a man of letters who treasured his relationships with authors. Now, most publishers are corporations that mine their writers FOR treasure. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the business of best-sellers. Also, a novelist who values a few good readers.

SEGMENT 1

Jacqueline Mitchard , author of "The Deep End of the Ocean," is this year's publishing phenom. She tells Jim Fleming how her seventy-five page outline made its way to the top of the NY Times bestseller list and that she risked becoming a fiction writer after her husband's death to prove to her kids that even a devastating blow in life doesn't have to kill your dreams.

SEGMENT 2:

Publisher Andre Schiffrin, who left Pantheon when it became part of a media conglomerate, talks with Judith Strasser about the changes that have taken place in the publishing business. Also, novelist Jonathan Franzen is disillusioned about the serious writer's role in our society, but, as he tells Judith Strasser, he intends to go on writing literary novels. His books include "The Twenty-Seventh City" and "Strong Motion;" Franzen's essay on writing, "Perchance to Dream," appeared in the April, 1996 issue of Harper's.

SEGMENT 3:

Book dealer and collector John Dunning talks with Steve Paulson about the sky-rocketing prices of first editions and tells him that collectors don't really think of first editions as books. John Dunning is also the author of two mysteries - "Booked to Die" and "The Bookman's Wake."

Distribution dates:

• week of 10/13/96 - hour 3
• week of 03/02/97 - hour 3