George Orwell Quotes

What I've discovered more recently is copies of books that I didn't represent, but that my boss represented when I assisted her on the dollar pile. I won't mention any names, but it is this profoundly bittersweet time of realizing, "Oh, I had a wonderful time working on this book and now it is a dollar relic on the side of the road."

I have to declare in all candor that no one interested in being published in our time can afford to be so naive as to believe that a book will make it merely because it's good.

Publishing is the only industry I can think of where most of the employees spend most of their time stating with great self-assurance that they don't know how to do their jobs. "I don't know how to sell this," they explain, frowning, as though it's your fault. "I don't know how to package this. I don't know what the market is for this book. I don't know how we're going to draw attention to this." In most occupations, people try to hide their incompetence; only in publishing is it flaunted as though it were the chief qualification for the job.

There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.

. I used to advise writers to just write their books and it will find a home, and suddenly that didn't seem as certain. I figured it was time to act. I considered a small press through RADAR, my literary non-profit.

I think people need to remember that a book isn't done after a few rewrites and a publisher isn't going to buy an 'undone' book so the hard part is making it a book that at least ten other people want to pay for to read.

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.

It's really hard to get a book published, even a good book, but the better the book is the better chance it has of eventually catching someone's attention.

If I had followed my own rules - if I had eaten my own dog food - I would have created a digital book that is searchable and linkable, that can be corrected and updated and discussed and passed around. But I took my publisher's advance money. Hey, dog's gotta eat. The book publishing industry still works - for now - because it adds value with editing, promotion, sales, and cash.

I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-reading on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.

I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.

When you get the ideas, that's a thrill; when you're writing the book and it's corning out well, that's a thrill; when you finish it and other people read it, that's a thrill. There are going to be reviews, of course; not everyone's going to love it. You feel sort of naked and vulnerable in a way. That's just a minor part of the process, really. If you can't take that part, you shouldn't be in the business. But there are so many joys to writing.

The States has more publishers and a wider range of aesthetics but so much more competition - the amount of writers vying for the same spot as you is staggering. I think they're different challenges, but equally frustrating when you're trying to get your foot in the door.

If we don’t cannibalize ourselves, someone else will.

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

The problem is the book business is changing so we're in a difficult moment now and if the business model is changing, I don't know if I'm going to have to look what's in store for me at that level but fortunately, I broke in earlier.

My British publisher has this independent press. It's pretty small; they actually won last year. And she's got this great energy, and she's fiercely independent, and you know this book was a hard sell. No one wanted to buy this book. But she did, and so it's paid off for her, I hope.

A new regulation for the publishing industry: "The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed.

Hillary has already gotten a record $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for the book -- reportedly the most anyone has ever received for rewriting history.

In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband.

When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.

You want to publish with a publisher because a publisher knows how to publish a book. And you don't. You really don't.

I write books and either people read them or they don't read them. The rise of Facebook or e-books doesn't change the difficulty level of writing sentences and thinking up new ideas.

I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.