Geoff Dyer Quotes

Most fledgling and mid-list writers are lucky to be offered a 4-figure sum and are not only expected to deliver copy that needs minimal editing but also take an active part in marketing and publicizing their work.

The moment I said I'd finished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone who'd got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because I'd written Harry Potter. That would have been why.

I know some authors who have gotten $25,000 advances and put it all into marketing, others who allocate $5,000 or $1,000.

If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.

For me to be a billion-dollar author, I need to have people buying my books at Wal-Mart.

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

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

My first YA novel, not many people have read. It's a fickle business. There's a degree of timing and luck involved.

My first two books did nada. I ended up paying the publishers.

I do one Xanth novel a year, because at the moment that is all that publishers will accept; they don't want any other type of fiction from me, so Xanth pays my way.

No one was interested in picking up a midlist series, even though I have a decent fanbase and respectable numbers.

Sadly, I don't think books ever sell based on your name alone - the minute we make an assumption like that is the minute it all goes horribly wrong!

I wrote a novel, Ghost Road Rules, and as soon as it was done and polished, I began reaching out to agents. I ignored the frequent advice to 'shoot low and try for a low-level agent because they're the only ones that will take a flyer on a new author.' That sounded like bad advice to me.

For a lot of people, becoming an author is a change in occupation... they are coming from something that totally has nothing to do with this. If they are expecting to come into a room full of people praising them, then they are in the wrong place.

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

You know, in the old days, you might be able to slowly sort of build an audience for your work by publishing two, three novels before you hit it big. You know, now, there's much more of an emphasis in the publishing houses on making sure that every book makes money.

After a while, if you're a writer, you want to start appearing in the bookstores of the place you're living in.

Publishers, editors, agents all have one thing in common, aside from their love of cocktail parties. It's an incredible taste and an ability to find and nurture authors.

My book sales make 'real writers' possible.

I had a very realistic expectation of the level of success that it was possible to attain writing romance novels.

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

As an author, I love to know my book sells really well.

One shouldn't say yes in desperation to the first publisher who approaches. New authors especially should wait and weigh their deal and agree only when they are sure that they have landed themselves a good offer.

I know very well that one cannot become an author by just writing a book.