Jerry B. Jenkins Quotes

I worked in publishing before I became an author, so I knew how a book gets made.

I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.

I remember Stephen King did a fundraiser one time with J.K. Rowling and he was very impressed with her. But we talk a lot about publishing, bookselling, and book writing. He's been around for ten years longer than me and was a bestseller right off the bat. And he's seen and done everything. It's rare to be with somebody who has been through all of that.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

I wrote my first book when I was in my late thirties.

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.

When I was publishing my first books, the previous generation of authors was fading away, so I was welcomed because I was a new author.

I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books.

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.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

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.

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.

It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.

My first novel, 'Housekeeping,' was accepted by the first agent who read it, and bought by the first editor who read it. In general, my experience with publication has been gentle and gratifying.

I was publishing when I was 20, 21. And it really never stopped.

I had the easiest publishing experience in the entire world. I sent out fifteen courier letters to agents, got five no replies, nine rejections and one I want to see it. A month later I had an agent. Another month later I had a three book deal with Little Brown.

I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.

I had always presumed that my first book would be published, but I never dreamt that I would write 15 bestsellers and have this wonderful life in America that I have entirely built for myself.

Writing books and being paid for it - it's not like winning the Lottery. You can't suddenly go, 'Yippee!' and start throwing tenners in the air. I've done pretty well out of it, but certainly not enough to say, 'Right, that's me set up for life.'

I've been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do 'A Cook's Tour;' I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn't already.

When you're a mid-list writer, it pays to write fast.

The first version of The Beautiful Room Is Empty was the first mss. I'd ever submitted to New York editors.

With the success of 'Black Privilege,' of course, the book publishers wanted me to come with another book immediately. They came with the check, but I don't do things for money.

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