Mr. Passion

Not that he's totally averse to television. He has begun placing his best-selling romance writers in the lucrative business of writing for daytime soap operas--a move that he maintains is raising the quality of daytime TV. He also handles the occasional movie script, but says that books, not movies, are his "passion."

"If it weren't a passion for me, I'd be in something else. There are easier ways to make money, and more direct ways to get attention. But this--this is the most fun money there is. I get to stand at the bloody crossroads of art and commerce. And I can tell you that the energy surrounding a $250,000 book contract exceeds the energy surrounding a $200 million leveraged buyout of a small financial services company--at least in terms of emotion. Because I have never seen anything approaching the energy and the love that an author puts into a book.