When Grosset acquired Ace in 1975, Doherty took over as publisher of Ace/Tempo, bringing Tempo editor McDougal with him as editorial director, and hiring Jim Baen from Galaxy to run the SF program.ĭoherty founded Tor Books in 1980 with funding from venture capitalist Dick Gallen. During this time, Ballantine published Tolkien and proved to the world that fantasy could be a major bestseller.ĭoherty moved to Grosset & Dunlap in 1969, becoming publisher of paperback books, including the YA line Tempo, which Harriet McDougal would edit.

Doherty moved around the country and within the company in a variety of sales jobs, eventually rising to sales manager of Simon & Schuster at a time when they were Ballantine’s distributor and he, in effect, was Ian Ballantine’s sales manager. He would learn a lot from Ballantine over the years. Seven months later he moved to Pocket, itself in Philadelphia, where he met publishing legend Ian Ballantine in the magazine wholesaler’s warehouse. His first full-time job was in publishing, as a sales rep for Select Magazines, at that time the national distributor for Pocket Books. Tor publisher Tom Doherty was born Apin Hartford CT, where he grew up and attended Trinity College, majoring first in chemical engineering and then in philosophy, and playing football, before serving almost two years in the US Army.

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