On February 4, 1962, the Sunday Times published in the first issue of the new color supplement a James Bond short story by Fleming entitled "The Living Daylights." The Daily Express, which had been serializing the novels and held the rights to the comic strip, was incensed about this, but Fleming managed to smooth things over once he got back to England.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was published in April, with a lovely Richard Chopping jacket picturing a Wilkinson dagger, red carnation, burnt paper and a burnt matchstick. On the title page, Fleming added a co-author under his own name: Vivienne Michel, the heroine of the story. In a preface to the American edition, Fleming stated that he found the manuscript on his desk at his office one day, spruced it up, and submitted it for publication. But he didn't pull anyone's leg. The world knew it was Ian Fleming's novel. The author was expecting mixed reviews for this one, and got them. In fact, Fleming was quite distressed at several violent attacks (one on television) for what some critics called the "pornographic" episodes of the heroine's early life before Bond enters the story. As a result, the book was banned in some countries, including the paperback edition in England for a few years. The Times called it a "morbid version of 'Beauty and the Beast,'" and The Listener described it as being "as silly as it is unpleasant." More women seemed to like it, however. Esther Howard in Spectator found it "surprising," adding that she liked "the Daphne du Maurier touch" and preferred it that way, but doubted that real fans would. Because of the poor reception of the book in England, Fleming stipulated to Eon Productions and Glidrose that only the title of this particular novel could be used by the film makers when the time came to bring THE SPY WHO LOVED ME to the screen. In America, reviewers were cool toward the book as well. Anthony Boucher wrote that the "author has reached an unprecedented low." This was the last Bond novel to be published by Viking Press. Fleming switched to New American Library and NAL immediately began a mass paperback campaign to promote the books, all with uniformly designed covers.