Sonny Mehta Quotes

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

There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.

In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.

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 process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter.

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.

In 2008, when I wrote Book 1 and Book 2, the head of the publishing house suggested twelve books - one each month. For practical reasons, that didn't work out.

A writer can spend a decade working obsessively on a novel, but in the commerce of publishing, many of the most important decisions about any book will be made based on very short pitches - from literary agent to editor to sales rep to bookstore buyer to a potential reader standing in the bookstore, asking, 'What's it about?'

If I'm writing books, I'm a 'New York Times' bestseller - how do I do it all? I don't know.

Bantam Press. And they commissioned me to write it. And when that was completed, they sold it to Harper and Row. And then I put it out to every movie studio in town. And they all turned it down.

According to my royalty statements, 'The Green Progression' sold 392 copies in hardcover.

There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.

Jerry and I hoped that it would be a popular bestseller.

I think most new writers are better off going with traditional publishers who will actually, at a minimum, edit your work, package it well, and market it for you.

I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success.

The Dancing Girls of Lahore was offered to dozens of British publishers and was turned down by everyone. It is still on offer in the U.K., but I'm not confident there will be any takers.

I think I'm gonna attach myself to the sinking ship that is book publishing.

I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Faber, whose literary history is second to none. And I'm even more excited to bring my books to a wider audience in the U.K.

I've got a publicist at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who's been working little miracles for me, but it's true the budgets aren't what they once were in terms of advertisement and book tours.

A book's title is vital.

I came into book publishing without any particular impulse to be in book publishing.

I know a bit about selling books, and you need a good title - a catchy concoction with a little Cajun spice, something that will make folks stop in the aisles, turn away from the Grisham novels and the latest crazy diet fad, and pick up your masterpiece.

Publishers should use the paperback side to leverage the ebook side.

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

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