Dave Morris Quotes

I have become so used to having people say, 'We loved your movie' instead of 'We read your book' that now I merely say, 'Thanks.'

Realistically, the chance of any book becoming a film is slim.

While some of the big publishers might give out 200,000 advances, if your book does not hit some of the lists in the second week, they stop paying attention to you.

From time to time, just about every 'Vanity Fair' writer has a chance to sell rights to an article or a book to Hollywood.

When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco.

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

My self-publishing adventure led to my work being picked up by a traditional publisher and eventually hitting the bestseller lists. That led to two more bestselling novels.

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.

I know publishing now more as an author than with occasional peaks inside those elite offices than as an industry insider. It was difficult publishing a novel the first time around, while working behind the scenes, knowing all that has to happen to make a book a success and to still make the leap as an author.

I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

Debut novels are difficult because nobody knows you... they just don't find a huge audience, because that's how the market works.

Film rights were in the offing for 'The Onion Field,' eventually made into a movie in 1979; 'The New Centurions' became a 1972 film starring George C. Scott, while 'The Blue Knight' starred William Holden in a 1973 mini-series version.

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.

A blurb might bring a reader to a book, but then the book itself has to do the rest of the work.

After I finished working on the movie, I went back into the show again playing Riff, so it was an incredible time because I loved playing Riff in the theater and, of course, I loved playing Bernardo in the film. We had such a really beautiful time. We knew we were working on something of quality.

The big bestsellers aren't being created by Barnes & Noble.

When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you can either see it as an albatross or a calling card.

A friend of mine, Neil Gaiman, had the film rights to his book 'Stardust' bought by producer Matthew Vaughn and suggested I adapt it for the screen.

The 'Blacklist' duology is a project I am very passionate about, and when the St. Martin's Press team approached me, I was captivated with their presentation.

I just hope, every now and then, the studios still slip one of my movies in.

I honestly thought I probably did sell 100 million books. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

The TV audience is way bigger than a book audience, and no matter what I do, I'm always thinking if this will help people read my books.

When Peter Jackson made the 'Lord of the Rings' movies, I remember there was a concern that people who didn't read Tolkien wouldn't go see the first one. But the films were so good in their own right that the audience grew beyond the readership of the book.

No one knows why books do well.

For a very long time, I thought everyone I met through the process of getting an agent and a publishing deal had made a mistake. When they agreed to pay me for the book, I thought they would ask me for the money back.