Selling Books Quotes

Having big audiences when you're on a book tour is like Valhalla if you're a person who used to sell Girl Scout cookies on the side. Because you want to give the reading that will sell the most books.

I once spent a spent a summer selling encyclopedias door to door.

I find it hard to think of myself as selling books. I don't even have a Web site. I want to sit and write, not sell.

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

Don't do a hard sell or try to tell the agent that you're going to be a bestseller or the next John Grisham. This goes down very badly. If your work is good, then they are skilled enough to know this within a few pages.

A boy has to peddle his book.

So, in effect, my first sale was actually two books.

I've been fortunate enough to write a book and travel the country to sign and sell it, so I can safely say that a five-second burst of conversation while you're scribbling your name, over and over, is not the most reliable way to bond with Americans.

I've heard people on panels say, 'You must have a Web site. You need to tweet. Repeat the title of your book constantly,' and I just want to say, 'Shut up. Everything you're saying is wrong.' People will know instantly if your only motivation for tweeting is to sell books.

These little books I write, such as The End of Freedom, about the post-9/11 political climate in the United States, sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies. Whereas, I hear novels on marriage are not selling. This is perhaps not the judgment of God, but it is certainly that of history.

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

The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing.

Look at the scope of writers who sell stuff. I'm at the very top of the power curve in terms of sales.

If the books are selling, the money will follow.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

You shouldn't talk about yourself all the time - most of us aren't for sale. Our books are. Talk about them. It's not a question of whether or not you're fascinating on a personal level - it's that your trivia and trials might not have any connection to the tone, tenor and sense of your books.

People like that I wrote a book - that's cute, but oh, making a business out of it? That's not nice.