Teresa Nielsen Hayden Quotes

Writers say many true things about their own experiences with publicity and promotion.

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.

Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.

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.

Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.

I have been incredibly lucky with my novels but I had absolutely no idea if anyone would be interested in a cookbook. So I started to think about self-publishing.

Overall, one of the things that excites me most about self-publishing is that the highest-value use of my time in promoting the books will be found in writing more of them.

Writers are essential. Readers are essential. Publishers are not.

I do send out information about my books. Very few people buy the books that way, but I always feel that if they want to know more about the process, they can get the information from my books.

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.

Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.

Putting out a book is absolutely a lesson in vulnerability because it doesn't matter how much of an audience you have. Some people who have giant audiences can't sell books because those audiences don't feel like they need to give them their money.

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

Publishing is not my world.

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

Being a writer - even a best-selling one - is usually not anywhere near as public as being a movie star, at least not when I'm out in 'real life' like this. Not that I don't use what fame I have, every chance I get, to help sell more books.

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.

Publishing is a tough business.

An author needs to be in the market. He or she needs to come out with a new book every year. That keeps you alive in the public mind and gives a push to your older books.

Publishing is the final step in making a book; if I was afraid to publish one, I wouldn't write it in the first place.

When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.

Some books and authors are best sellers, but most aren't. It may be easier to self-publish than it is to traditionally publish, but in all honesty, it's harder to be a best seller self-publishing than it is with a house.

It's hard for a newbie author to get noticed.

I've had good publishers and bad publishers, and you've got to learn when the advice is sensible and when it's not.

Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage.