David Macinnis Gill Quotes

Criticism is part of being in the marketplace. If you can't take a bit of criticism, you shouldn't bother publishing a book.

The most important thing is readers. I've got a huge Twitter following, but I don't really think it sells books; I don't think a huge Facebook following sells books - although these things aren't bad, of course.

I get daily mentions in blogs, I get mentions in Twitter and in different social media... I know that gets books sold.

What I enjoy about reviewing and writing for newspapers and periodicals is simply the chance to talk about all kinds of books and lots of them.

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.

No one wants a masterpiece knocking around when your own book is looking for attention.

I have been rejected 120 times, probably because I didn't write the right book.

Publishers, editors, agents all have one thing in common, aside from their love of cocktail parties. It's an incredible taste and an ability to find and nurture authors.

I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.

Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.

I had a very realistic expectation of the level of success that it was possible to attain writing romance novels.

I know very well that one cannot become an author by just writing a book.

Part of my problem as a young writer was that I was too much a New Yorker, always second-guessing the 'market.' I became so discouraged that I decided to write something that would please me alone - that became my sole criterion. And that was when I wrote 'Forgetting Elena,' the first novel I got published.

Being a novelist is hard for anyone - male or female. You don't get to quit your day job.

Thus far, I've devoted my entire career to publishing genre short fiction, but I now look forward to applying that same level of curation to finding the best new novels and new authors.

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.

I never expected to write a book about a slum in Ireland that was going to catapult me, as they say, into some kind of - onto the best seller list.

The bestseller list is the tip of the iceberg.

In the two novels I have published, it was my fortune at different times, and from different persons, to hear the most unqualified censure long before it was possible for me to hear the voice of the public. But my temper was not altered, nor my courage subdued.

One of the things you want as a successful writer is the anonymity.

As an author, I love to know my book sells really well.

Every time I had a book come out, I'm like, 'Is it going to be number one?'

I'm not sure if you can strive your way into a career as a novelist. You have to write books; there are no short cuts.

As I see it, my job has always been to champion the work of the authors I publish.