Publishers Quotes - Page 15

• I was invited by a publisher to write the text for Tantra.[1] Having done some research, what fascinated me was the evidence that many 'tantric' ideas actually came to India from the Mediterranean. It is rather a dry read and debunks reports of orgies and sexual mischief – sorry to disappoint.

  Indra Sinha

  Sorry, Writing, Ideas

  6 Copy quote

• Write first. Worry about getting an agent or publisher later. Write it first. Prove you can do it and then others will listen. Tons of people talk about books they want to write. Far fewer are those who actually complete that vision. Don’t be a talker.

  Po Bronson

  Book, Writing, People

  7 Copy quote

• By 1833 the largest publisher in America, Harper and Company, boasted one horse-powered printing press and seven hand presses while the American Bible Society owned 16 new state-of-the-art, steam-driven presses and 20 hand presses.

  Phil Cooke

  Art, Horse, Hands

  7 Copy quote

• Sarah Palin - now don't laugh - is writing a book. Not just reading a book, writing a book. Actually, in the word of the publisher, she's 'collaborating' on a book. What an embarrassment! It's one of these 'I told you,' books that jocks do.

  Chris Matthews

  Book, Reading, Writing

  "Hardball with Chris Matthews", www.nbcnews.com. May 13, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can get a subjective and highly factual dossier on most anyone in the public realm almost instantly. It's why publishers don't worry about author photos any more; people just Google a person and get on with things.

  Douglas Coupland

  People, Worry, Google

  4 Copy quote

• Never use 'submit' as a verb for sending work to magazine or book publishers; say 'offer,' and never, ever submit. Keep your knees unbent. Be brave.

  Frederick Busch

  Book, Brave, Verbs

  4 Copy quote

• Writing is not about making a buck, not about publishers and agents. Writing is not about feeling good. Writing is about pain, suffering, hard work, risk, and fear.

  Sue Grafton

  Pain, Hard Work, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• Times have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again."

  James M. Barrie

  Times Have Changed, Bye, Sitting

  4 Copy quote

• The Seven Deadly Sins of the Press: - Concentrated Power of the Big Press. - Passing of competition and the coming of monopoly. - Governmental control of the press. - Timidity, especially in the face of group and corporate pressures. - Big Business mentality. - Clannishness among the newspaper publishers that has prevented them from criticizing each other. - Social blindness.

  Max Lerner

  Government, Competition, Groups

  8 Copy quote

• When I started in the business, there was a thing called adult fantasy, but nobody quite knew what it was, and most publishers didn't have an adult fantasy list. They had science fiction lists, which they stuck a little bit of fantasy into.

  Terri Windling

  Business, Adults, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• I believe my publisher has shown a great deal of faith in me over a lot of years but I'm not prepared to be so arrogant to say that the long-term literary value of my work would compensate them for a financial failure.

  Andrew Vachss

  Faith, Believe, Years

  7 Copy quote

• It's a shame publishers send rejection slips. Writers should get something more substantial than a slip that amounts to a pile of confetti. Publishers should send something heavier. Editors should send out rejection bricks, so at the end of a lot of years, you would have something to show besides a wheelbarrow of rejection slips. Instead you could have enough bricks to build a house.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Years, Editors, Rejection

  7 Copy quote

• Back then, if you had a sore arm, the only people concerned were you and your wife. Now it's you, your wife, your agent, your investment counselor, your stockbroker, and your publisher.

  Jim Bouton

  Funny, Business, People

  4 Copy quote

• I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

  Tanith Lee

  Writing, Feelings, Wish

  13 Copy quote

• I write synopses after the book is completed. I can't write it beforehand, because I don't know what the book's about. I invent something for my publisher because he asks for one, but the final book ends up very differently.

  Jackie Collins

  Book, Writing, Finals

  7 Copy quote

• After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

  George Ade

  Writing, Belief, Turned Down

  Fables in Slang (1900) p. 158

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think people really understood what I did. And you know, in my book, 'A Helluva High Note' deals with my back story, that I was a songwriter, that I spent years trying to hone my craft and being rejected and then finally becoming a successful songwriter, record executive and publisher.

  Kara DioGuardi

  Book, Successful, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• When I was growing up the publishing world seemed so far away. When my mother wrote a book, she would look up the address of publishers on the backs of the books she owned and send off her manuscript.

  Kiran Desai

  Mother, Growing Up, Book

  "Kiran Desai on the Costs Of Literary Celebrity" by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, www.wsj.com. April 21, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do see an interest in writing for Twitter. While publishers still do love the novel and people do still like to sink into one, the very quick form is appealing because of the pace of life.

  Lydia Davis

  Writing, People, Pace

  "Lydia Davis hints at move to microblogging fiction" by Vanessa Thorpe, www.theguardian.com. May 25, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not a great shopper but I do buy a lot of books. I'm the publishers' friend - I buy a hundred books a year and read four.

  Alan Davies

  Book, Years, Four

  4 Copy quote

• We need an unambiguous rule - a law - that nobody will step between the publisher and the consumer, full stop.

  Barry Diller

  Law, Needs, Steps

  "Net neutrality should be law, says media tycoon" by Shane Richmond, www.telegraph.co.uk. March 15, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre.

  Emma Donoghue

  Thinking, Would Be, Way

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes I feel the only way I can get a major publisher interested in mental illness is if I find a character who has bipolar disorder and is also a love-sick vampire attending an English school called Hogwarts. But I'm not giving up.

  Pete Earley

  Giving Up, Character, School

  "What's Driving Pete Earley Crazy". Interview with Lizzie Simon, www.psychologytoday.com. March 18, 2010.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.

  Daniel Ek

  Artist, Two, Dollars

  "$2 Billion and Counting". news.spotify.com. November 11, 2014.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I didn't want the headache of having a publisher reviewing everything I wrote in advance.

  Mark Millar

  Want, Headache

  14 Copy quote