Richard Curtis Quotes

No one really knows the value of book tours. Whether or not they're good ideas, or if they improve book sales. I happen to think the author is the last person you'd want to talk to about a book. They hate it by that point; they've already moved on to a new lover. Besides, the author never knows what the book is about anyway.

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.

Don't hire anyone - no matter what they offer - who promises you they'll sell 'X' copies of your book. Every book is different. The best any marketing company or PR firm can do for your book is make potential readers aware of it.

A bad book and good marketing won't work, the same way a good book and bad marketing will also not work. There is no choice in the matter that if you need to write a good book, you also need to have good marketing for it.

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.

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.

PR and marketing doesn't sell books. It gets attention for them. It sends readers to bookstores and websites to read a few pages.

I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.

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.

Whether you work with a small or corporate press, the important thing is to have realistic expectations in terms of sales, promotion, and the work you have to do as an author promoting your novel.

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

Publicity doesn't work for books. It really doesn't. All it does is get your name in front of a reader who might then glance at your book. Or not.

To move up to hardcover is a way of getting more attention for my books. It means a lot to me: It means my books are legitimate.

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!

If I'm on the road for Random House, I'm presenting a book with the hope people will buy it.

There is nothing quite like having your book read and truly understood. It's all the better when it's someone who knows how to go out there and sell it.

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.

All the marketing and advertising sells the book as what it is and hopes that the book will be displayed so that your readers can find it.

I think it's a fallacy to say that a good book sells itself. It doesn't happen. I'm a voracious reader and I can give you a long list of books which should have been best sellers but they aren't. How can you buy a book if you haven't heard of it?

Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.

An author's ability to bring a marketing synopsis to the table - along with a great manuscript - makes a difference in what books get picked up. This is true for both fiction and nonfiction titles. You need to show your publisher what you've got in your marketing arsenal.

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

Ask your editor or ask your agent to find out what the house's goals are for your book before it comes out. Get some sense of expectations so you are prepared.

I've always viewed myself as a brand. When I started 10 years ago, that was very controversial. 'Marketing' and 'PR' were dirty words for the literary world, but that has changed. Once the book is finished, I want as many people as possible to read it.