Deb Caletti Quotes

I earned my writing stripes with a large man's shoebox overflowing with rejection slips... more than 100 before I got my first, 'Yes, we want this,' accompanied by a check.

I always assumed I could never make a living out of literary fiction, and I was right. When I did try, it took four years before being published.

I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published.

It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.

My first novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in the interim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literary agent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction.

It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.

Writing careers are short. For every 100 writers, 99 never get published. Of those who do, only one in every hundred gets a career out of it, so I count myself as immensely privileged.

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.

I started writing 'The Lobster Kings' the day after I sold my first novel, 'Touch.'

In the summer of '80, Silhouette bought my first book.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books.

I wrote a novel, Ghost Road Rules, and as soon as it was done and polished, I began reaching out to agents. I ignored the frequent advice to 'shoot low and try for a low-level agent because they're the only ones that will take a flyer on a new author.' That sounded like bad advice to me.

After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract.

If you don't make the best-seller list, if you don't get shortlisted for any prizes, it's goodbye.

I didn't make 'The New York Times' bestseller list until 'Charmed Thirds,' and then again for 'Fourth Comings.' It gave me a certain validation, and it certainly helps position me for future books, but it's not something I think about on a daily basis.

I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.

Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to 'gamble' on an unknown.

Early in my publishing career, someone told me I'd need to have five books in print before I could quit my job as a journalist. Turns out it was closer to 10 books. It also turns out that while it's great to see my titles on bookstore shelves, my best customers are schools and libraries.

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

I believe if you write a great book, the chances are it'll get a great reception.