Author Awareness Quotes

I don't know if any single book made me want to write. C.S. Lewis was the first writer to make me aware that somebody was writing the book I was reading - these wonderful parenthetical asides to the reader.

I don't think that children, if left to themselves, feel that there is an author behind a book, a somebody who wrote it. Grown-ups have fostered this quotient of identity, particularly teachers. Write a letter to your favorite author and so forth. When I was a child I never realized that there were authors behind books. Books were there as living things, with identities of their own.

If no one knows your book is out there, no one will think about buying it. It's as simple as that.

The trouble is when people read about authors, they don't feel compelled to read the authors' work.

I can't change the preconceived notions a reader brings to a work, but I can do my best to be aware of, address, and subvert tropes and expectations that readers may have as best I can and hope I don't screw it up too much.

I think 'Miracle's Boys' made more people aware of my work.

A cop told me, a long time ago, that there’s no substitute for knowing what you’re doing. Most of us scribblers do not. The ones that’re any good are aware of this. The rest write silly stuff. The trouble is this: The readers know it.

There's a difference between publicity and marketing. A lot of writers don't realize how much marketing goes on beyond the scenes, with sales reps and advanced reading copies, all that stuff that happens months before a book is published.

I get thousands of letters, and they give me a feeling of how each book is perceived. Often I think I have written about a certain theme, but by reading the letters or reviews, I realise that everybody sees the book differently.

Herta Muller, Mo Yan, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio - for many of us, the Nobels have become doubly educational: We simultaneously learn of an author's existence and find out that we ought to have been reading him or her all along.

I'm very privy to the way bookstores work, and I think a lot about the ecosystem that my books have been published in. I think it's great to be aware of how publishing works.