Well I started traveling and doing interviews in 1985. That took years. Decades. (I had to type 7 million words of transcripts, for one thing.)

In 1987 I sent in a pitch to Knopf/Doubleday's managing editor, and she wrote back and said "We are interested; please send the manuscript at your convenience" and I did . . . in 2015. And the same managing editor was there, and she took it the right way, and was amused, and shared it with editors, and Pantheon, an imprint of Knopf/Doubleday, said yes. I delivered the final final manuscript in 2016 and the book came out in 2017.