Lev Grossman Quotes

Often I go to book festivals and they just turn authors into celebrities.'

I'm going to book-and-author dinners, and I'm the author!

I love meeting readers and booksellers and am beyond overwhelmed and gratified at the reception. Each day feels like an adventure.

Writers aren't in competition with one another. It isn't a zero sum game. If you have a good book, a good cover, a good product description, and a low price, you can sell well.

Gone are the days when a publisher could take out an ad, count on a few reviews, and have an author do a couple of signings. Nowadays, readers want to feel a connection with an author.

I have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.

How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.

I think of my own work as part of a decades-long conversation about books and reading with people I will mainly never meet.

Any independent bookstore that has managed to survive is the best place to do a reading.

Contrary to popular belief, editors and agents are gagging for good books.

When I wrote about media and technology, I had a lot of lonely, even intimate book talks. Since writing about dogs, I have a lot of company at book signings.

I went to SXSW in 2011. God, that was awful. I mean, I only went because my publisher wanted me to promote the book and the organizers invited me and it seemed silly not to go, especially for a relatively unknown first-time author. This is just not my cup of tea; the fewer such events I do on an annual basis, the happier I feel.

It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing.

Publishers like their authors to take advantage of publicity opportunities.

I'm a reader for lots of reasons. On the whole, I tend to hang out with readers, and I'm scared they wouldn't want to hang out with me if I stopped.

Wandering the book fair at AWP is a great way to get acquainted with a wide sampling of the diverse journals that are out there and the wide sampling of people who produce them.

The YA author community is generally pretty friendly, and they care.

Writers are a loosely knit community - community is an overstated word. Writers don't see each other very much.

Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long.

Not only is there no question of solitude, but in the long run we may not choose our company.

So it is that Lonely Places attract as many lonely people as they produce, and the loneliness we see in them is partly in ourselves.

I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.

I like to hear from my readers, and I like to feel like I'm part of a bigger community of readers and writers.

Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it.

If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.