Publishing Quotes

“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do---the actual act of writing---turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”
― Anne Lamott

“I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.”
― Beth Revis

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.”
― Zig Ziglar

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer?”
― Roman Payne

“If the novel is dead, I'm a necrophiliac.”
― Tiffany Madison

“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

“Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.”
― Stephen King, Bag of Bones

“The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.”
― Michael Moorcock

“It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.”
― Don DeLillo

“You can't judge a book by it's cover but you can sure sell a bunch of books if you have a good one.”
― Jayce O'Neal

“It can be depressing when no one takes interest, and a lack of response makes the writer question why they’re writing at all. To have one’s writing rejected is like you, yourself, are being rejected. ”
― Lizz Clements, Apollo Weeps

“When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it.”
― Salman Rushdie , Joseph Anton: A Memoir

“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!”
― Roman Payne

“As a young man just beginning to publish some short fiction in the t&a magazines, I was fairly optimistic about my chances of getting published; I knew that I had some game, as the basketball players say these days, and I also felt that time was on my side; sooner or later the best-selling writers of the sixties and seventies would either die or go senile, making room for newcomers like me.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature.”
― Fran Lebowitz

“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

“It takes great courage to write great books. Find your courage and find your voice.”
― Kristen Lamb

“Persistence can look a lot like stupid.”
― Kristen Lamb, Are You There Blog? It's Me, Writer

“It wouldn't happen... There hasn't been one publication by a monkey”
― Karl Pilkington, The Ricky Gervais Show - First, Second and Third Seasons

“I have always believed in the principle that immediate survival is more important than long-term survival.”
― Jack McClelland, Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters

“It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect--a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960)”
― Jack McClelland, Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters

“We do not like the truth because it is simple, we do not want the truth because it is hard, and we do not trust the truth because it is free.

Perhaps because many are idealists and publishing is so frustrating, writers are particularly vulnerable to believing in those who offer hope in exchange for cash. Writers know life is tough and we all want to think of an easier way. Maybe for a rare few, there is. If you count on that, you are a chump and somebody is going to take your money and break your heart.”
― Pat Walsh, 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might

“I would not employ an author to referee a Ping-Pong match. By their very nature they are biased and bloody-minded. Better put a fox in a henhouse than to ask an author to judge his peers. (in a letter to the Governor General about the GA's Literary Awards & his issue--among others--with the judging system, 1981)”
― Jack McClelland, Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters

“We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money....”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Dream up a book on Monday, publish it on Friday.”
― Jill Novak

“People can’t read a book if they don’t know it exists. All authors need to do marketing, regardless of how they published.”
― Jo Linsdell

“Publicamos para não passar a vida a corrigir rascunhos. Quer dizer, a gente publica um livro para livrar-se dele”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“You may receive a pie, eat it and forget. You may receive champagne, drink it and forget. But when you receive a book, you can open it again and again.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, 101 Keys To Everyday Passion