Chris Pavone Quotes

Not all new books carry endorsements, and I wouldn't say that blurbs are indispensable for marketing.

With a hardcover, you get two chances, a year apart, for the book to make an impact - often with a new cover featuring artfully crafted snippets of reviews, a new marketing campaign and maybe even a new publisher.

Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help.

There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.

To make a bestseller, there are more customers than just your customers: Selling to the end-user is just one piece of the puzzle. In my case, I needed to first sell myself to the publisher to get marketing support and national retail distribution.

The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.

I am hoping to work with writers publishing books for first time, since I of course remember what that experience is like. It's all a bit of a mystery for new authors who don't know what to expect.

In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.

I do send out information about my books. Very few people buy the books that way, but I always feel that if they want to know more about the process, they can get the information from my books.

The process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter.

With the big publishers, they publish 50 books and promote five.

I know publishing now more as an author than with occasional peaks inside those elite offices than as an industry insider. It was difficult publishing a novel the first time around, while working behind the scenes, knowing all that has to happen to make a book a success and to still make the leap as an author.

I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.

There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.

A book's title is vital.

I came into book publishing without any particular impulse to be in book publishing.

No one knows why books do well.

At Knopf, we look at each book on a case-by-case basis... in some cases, we think a writer might get a boost from an endorsement by a fellow writer, but in other cases, a new book will be better served by other means, such as publicity and reviews.

There's so much published by so many different publishers. Most of the time, I don't have to confront that, but walking into a conference center filled with books - and people buying them or not buying them, being interested or not interested in them - that's just overwhelming to me now.

People think writing is a very distinguished, cerebral thing, where all you do is write. It doesn't work that way. People have to see online promotions, see piles of your book in stores, and you have to make sure the guy recommends it!

Publishing a book is a very different thing than writing one.

Thousands of books are published every year in India, and it's becoming more difficult to stand out and get people to buy the books. The only way to get people notice the book is to create a buzz much before it's released.

Most new books drop immediately into the oblivion they so richly deserve.

It's really hard to get a book published, even a good book, but the better the book is the better chance it has of eventually catching someone's attention.

Books are such quiet things - created in silence, read in silence - yet publishing a book has become a very noisy business. I've been noisy, too. I felt like I had to be in order to connect with my readers.