Augusten Burroughs Quotes

There was a mission: To match the cover of 'Extraordinary' to the cover of the paperback 'Impossible,' which was commercially successful. Consider the outdoor natural setting, the single girl in motion with her hair blowing, and the cursive font used for the title; both covers have these in common.

I hate to see great works of literature ghettoized, whereas others that conform to the rules, conventions, and procedures of the genre we call literary fiction get accorded greater esteem and privilege. I also have a problem with how books are marketed, with certain cover designs and typefaces. They're often stamped with an identity that has nothing to do with their effect on the reader.

Covers matter. In my experience, a different cover can make you think you're reading an entirely different book.

I should be sorry to think it was the publishers themselves they got up this entire little flutter to enable them to unload a book that was taking too much room in their cellars, but you can never tell what a publisher will do. I have been one myself.

I am always consulted about covers, and give feedback, but I am also aware that what causes a customer to pick a book up off a shelf in the UK is very different from what causes a customer to pick a book up in the US.

Write the best book you possibly can, then dedicate yourself to getting people to read it.

In Poland, for a while, my books all had cartoons on the cover. I trust my publishers in each country to know what works in their individual markets.

Don't try to change the package more than you try and change the product.

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.

Readers are always surprised to learn that authors have little or no input regarding the cover art for their books.

Your agent should be invested in the success of your book past the contract stage. After all, if it sells well, she's going to be getting 15 percent of every dime you make. She can be your best advocate in fighting for your book - not just with editing and the cover, but with marketing and sales as well.

The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks.

Marketers have long known that a name can make all the difference when you're trying to move the merch. The kiwifruit was once the Chinese gooseberry, after all - at least until the produce peddlers wised up - and the Chilean sea bass was once the singularly unappetizing Patagonian toothfish.

'Cosmopolitan' used to publish five covers across the U.S. so that if one was unpopular, it wouldn't tank their entire sales.

We didn't realize it at the time, but the release date, the ad campaign and the poster are so important.

When I was first writing 'Feed' - which was the first book I published as Mira - I talked about it very openly on my blog, on Twitter, that I was writing this book, and it wasn't until after it was sold that I said 'Mira Grant' wrote this book. And the reason there was really purely marketing-based.

I think 'The Time Traveler's Wife' is one of the most brilliantly marketed books I have ever seen.

If you've written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a 'feminine' image on the cover, it 'types' the book.

No matter how beautiful and loved a cover may be, the jury on it remains uncommitted until the book has been in the world for a while. Perhaps bookstore buyers will be indifferent. Perhaps it will be lost on store shelves. Perhaps there's another book or two out there using the same or a similar photo.

A book's title is vital.

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

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!

Now we understand that the most important thing we do is market the product. We've come around to saying that Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.

The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.

Many writers hate the shilling process, and I understand that. However, it's really the only thing about the publication process you can somewhat control. You can't affect reviews. But you can try to find your book an audience. One of the problems with the book publishing industry is that their publicity efforts tend to be spent on people who already read, and know how to discover, literary fiction.