Publishing Timeline Quotes

Way back before the 'Alex Barnaby' series was first published, we were talking with Dark Horse then about making it into a graphic novel of some sort. We just couldn't get it together at the time; we had too many projects going on. We weren't sure how we wanted to bring it forward.

I came in on the decline. Phil Elliot was in first, he got his book out, he sold thirteen thousand, I think he got two issues out before I got mine in, this was March '87. He was out in December '86.

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 work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out?

I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.

One thing I've learned now is that I should not say when a book is coming out until I'm sure I know.

Kindle Singles is publishing on skates. It prints like lightning; our book meets readers in hours. I've spent so many years waiting for publishers to consider whether they wanted to print a book of mine, making contracts, taking months to fit it into the Fall list or the Spring list, fitting it into an advertising plan.

How long it takes to write a book depends on its length.

I'm sure you're aware, with the time it takes to put these books together, everything can suddenly start coming out at once even though I wrote anything between one and five years ago.

At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.

One question that often comes up is why, in this age of blogs and tweets and instant digital communication of all kinds, it still takes so long to publish a book.

Having set its tonal template, Vertigo Crime laid low for a few months before starting in earnest at the beginning of 2010.

I thought when I started writing that I'd have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn't going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.

It generally takes me about nine months from the point the book is conceived to the point my editor sends it off to be typeset.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.

I think I've finally learned to stop worrying about how big the gaps are between my novels' publication.

Save yourself some grief. Check with the publicist you hire to see what other books he/she has coming out at the same time as yours.

The wheels of publishing never slow down.

The 'Broken Destiny' series will be a trilogy, with each book releasing about a year apart.

After I've sent my revised draft to my agent and editor, they suggest more improvement sand again, this revision phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months.

Each of my books took roughly one and a half years to write. Some may have taken a shorter time to write the draft and a longer time to revise, while others were the opposite.

YouTube is so quick and so instant, and you make a video, and you can upload it the same day, whereas with a book, you have to go through a lot of time and a lot of people and a lot of processes. So it was weird to sit down and work with other people on projects, because I'm so independent with YouTube.

Traditional publishers require an author to submit a manuscript six months in advance, and if pressed, no later than two or three.

Each of my books has taken me a different length of time to write - eight months for 'Seesaw Girl,' eight months for 'Shard,' three years for 'When My Name Was Keoko!' The publisher takes another year and a half to work on the book, so altogether each book can take up to three or four years to publish.