Publishers Quotes - Page 13

• I don't like 'graphic novel.' It's a word that publishers created for the bourgeois to read comics without feeling bad. Comics is just a way of narrating - it's just a media type.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Media, Feelings, Way

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• My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.

  Wilbur Smith

  Real, World, Firsts

  "Wilbur Smith, author - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. January 15, 2013.

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• Publishers, naturally, loathe used books and have developed strategies to depress the secondhand market. They bring out new, even more expensive editions of popular textbooks every three to four years, in a classic cycle of planned obsolescence.

  James Surowiecki

  Depressing, Book, Years

  "Class Action". www.newyorker.com. November 7, 2005.

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• When I was a publisher of CNN, I took responsibility for the actions of the network.

  Ted Turner

  Responsibility, Cnn, Action

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• My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Editors, Feminine

  "VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match - not even Jane Austen" by Amy Fallon, www.theguardian.com. June 1, 2011.

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• Most times with vanity projects, publishers don't believe in the work; they just believe in the name.

  Gerard Way

  Believe, Vanity, Names

  Interview with Dave Scheidt, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 21, 2012.

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• I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream - I was surprised to find it happening.

  Haruki Murakami

  Dream, Book, Writing

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• There is no concept more generally cherished by publishers than that of the Undeserving Poor.

  A. J. Liebling

  Poor, Undeserving, Concepts

  A. J. Liebling (2005). “Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer”, p.22, Macmillan

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• I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Book, Years, Names

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• Publishers are notoriously slothful about numbers, unless they're attached to dollar signs - unlike journalists, quarterbacks, and felony criminal defendants who tend to be keenly aware of numbers at all times.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Numbers, Criminals, Dollars

  Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream”, p.291, Pan Macmillan

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• If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.

  Jasper Fforde

  Life, Real, Book

  Jasper Fforde (2009). “Something Rotten: Thursday Next”, p.87, Hachette UK

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• There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Writing, Rejection, Suffering

  "Intuitions and Summaries of Thought" by Christian Nestell Bovee, Vol. I, (p. 68), 1862.

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• I've been writing since I was six. It is a compulsion, so I can't really say where the desire came from; I've always had it. My breakthrough with the first book came through persistence, because a lot of publishers turned it down!

  J. K. Rowling

  Book, Writing, Persistence

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• As difficult as it is for a writer to find a publisher-admittedly a daunting task-it is twice as difficult for a publisher to sort through the chaff, select the wheat, and profitably publish a worthy list.

  Olivia Goldsmith

  Writing, Tasks, Wheat

  Olivia Goldsmith (2014). “The Bestseller”, p.146, Diversion Books

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• Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.

  P. D. James

  Writing, Nurse, Sells

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• And it does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages- all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down and underpaid person.'

  Doris Lessing

  Book, Writing, Criticism

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• Write what you care about and understand. Writers should never try to outguess the marketplace in search of a salable idea; the simple truth is that all good books will eventually find a publisher if the writer tries hard enough, and a central secret to writing a good book is to write on that people like you will enjoy.

  Richard North Patterson

  Book, Writing, Simple

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• If a publisher declines your manuscript, remember it is merely the decision of one fallible human being, and try another.

  Stanley Unwin

  Writing, Decision, Trying

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• Publishers are thieves, they are on the other side of the barricade.

  Paul Bowles

  Writing, Thieves, Sides

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• Australian SF book publishing has undergone a boom recently, and sometimes it's easier for new writers to sell a book to a local publisher first, which then makes a US edition more likely.

  Greg Egan

  Book, Conceited, Firsts

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• The walls are the publishers of the poor.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Wall, Writing, Poor

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• Advice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and just roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get lost in your subject.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Elderly, Advice

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• It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don't really know what they're after--they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisher's blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  Book, People, Clerks

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• I think it's a shame that something as creative and vital to the nature of the human species as story-telling is largely controlled by the soulless cretins known as publishers.

  Piers Anthony

  Thinking, Creative, Stories

  Piers Anthony (2001). “How Precious Was That While”, p.87, Macmillan

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• I sent a lot of publishing ideas to my publisher, about 30 of them. Each time except 3, i got a "rejection letter". This is basically what a rejection letter is like: Hello Pathetic Moron, We read your book. It sucked. Don't send us another one. If you do, we will run over your grandmother with a bus. Don't Do It. From, Your Publisher

  James Dashner

  Running, Book, Grandmother

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