Caroline Leavitt Quotes

I used to want covers that represented the book's contents very closely and were also pretty. Many folks automatically believe that this is what makes a good cover. But I've changed my mind about this. While the cover should not lie (by implication or outright), its job is simply to say: 'Pick me up!' to someone who might like the book.

Alejandro Colucci has designed covers for my books that stand out, that catch the eye, and that make me, as a reader and consumer, want to know more about the books behind those covers.

And I think a good writer's gonna make it interesting. From the first paragraph it will all be interesting. Just work at it and work at it and work at it.

How many times have you opened a book, read the first few sentences and made a snap decision about whether to buy it? When it's your book that's coming under this casual-but-critical scrutiny, you want the reader to be instantly hooked. The way to accomplish this is to create compelling opening sentences.

I believe in advancing the story with the cover so that the audience gets taken in immediately with that cover.

Covers, so many covers, so many different, delectable pictures, and although, metaphorically speaking, it is the thing I hate most, when it comes to literature I always judge books by their covers. First the cover will catch my eye, then I read the back of the book, and then finally the first page.

Actually, I love trying to figure out why certain books become hits while others, which may be just as good, have trouble finding an audience.

Bantam has an incredible team working on my books, and I'm so thrilled that the art department is so amazing, since those covers are the 'face' of my stories!

Good writers are in the business of leaving signposts saying, Tour my world, see and feel it through my eyes; I am your guide.

When we talk about good books, we often talk about good sentences, but what we rarely talk about is reader pleasure. Yet it is reader pleasure that is going to make a book break out into the kind of success that makes it into a household name.

If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

Writing is hard work. Generating stories that catch people's attention and holding it are very difficult.

I love my job, and I love books. I read anything, including cereal boxes. I care deeply about what people think of my books, and I memorize my reviews. I love to hear from my readers.

When I was in college, I had the good fortune to have Joyce Carol Oates as my writing teacher. She told me that I could take an aspect of myself, and from that one bit of personality, I can create a character. This is what I have done, particularly in my novels.

I'm a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don't agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

The marketability, the success of a book, ultimately rests with whether or not people will find the concept/characters/title/cover appealing.

Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many people do you know who are impeccably groomed... but dull?

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.

The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.

When you're an established name, you know that a children's book will have a pretty good chance of getting picked up. Like Madonna. It's not that I had this great idea. Actually, in my case, it was a great idea.

A lot of writers fall in love with their sentences or their construction of sentences, and sometimes that's great, but not everybody is Gabriel Garcia Marquez or James Joyce. A lot of people like to pretend that they are, and they wind up not giving people a good read or enlightening them.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

One thing I learned working at magazines was that if you couldn't get people to look at a page or a cover, then you were fired. It was all about how you create arresting works, and by arresting I mean stop people, even for a nano-second.

There's always that discussion about fiction about how do you market it - these are books for boys, these are books for girls, these are books for adults. Actually, they're just stories, and if they're good stories, then they surpass those boundaries.