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Publishing Quotes

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Publishing Quotes

“It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect--a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960)”

WritingHumorLettersCanadaPublishingEditing
Book:Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters
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“I would not employ an author to referee a Ping-Pong match. By their very nature they are biased and bloody-minded. Better put a fox in a henhouse than to ask an author to judge his peers. (in a letter to the Governor General about the GA's Literary Awards & his issue--among others--with the judging system, 1981)”

WritingHumorJudgingAwardsPublishingPublishersAuthors
Book:Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters
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“We do not like the truth because it is simple, we do not want the truth because it is hard, and we do not trust the truth because it is free. Perhaps because many are idealists and publishing is so frustrating, writers are particularly vulnerable to believing in those who offer hope in exchange for cash. Writers know life is tough and we all want to think of an easier way. Maybe for a rare few, there is. If you count on that, you are a chump and somebody is going to take your money and break your heart.”

WritingPublishing
Book:78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might
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“You have made some notes, read some writing books, and done some research. Mostly what you've done is talk about writing a book. An idea for a book is not a book; it is a waste of time. There is no singular thing that makes someone a writer, but there is one thing that makes someone a joke--talking about writing a book without doing any work.”

WritingPublishing
Book:78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might
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“Good cover design is not only about beauty... it’s a visual sales pitch. It’s your first contact with a potential reader. Your cover only has around 3 seconds to catch a browsing reader’s attention. You want to stand out and make them pause and consider, and read the synopsis.”

MarketingPublishingMarketing AdviceBook CoversPublishing BooksCover Design
Book:Being Indie: A No Holds Barred, Self Publishing Guide for Indie Authors
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“We can’t be everything for our book. Sometimes, we must surrender it to people who can help. It’s all about the book. It’s not a reflection of your competence. But, please ask from the right people. Hire the right people. Approach experts. Friends are great for moral support, but when you need expertise and advise, then ask the experts. Otherwise, you’d be a blind man being guided by another blind man telling you which way to go. A practice that is too common in this industry.”

PublishingSelf PublishingPublishing BooksSelf Publishing TipsAuthors On AuthorsIndie Publishing
Book:Being Indie: A No Holds Barred, Self Publishing Guide for Indie Authors
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“Writing a book is a job, like any other. It requires research, analysis, testing, and entire days in front of a laptop, typing, reading, editing, proofreading, etc. If books were free, writers wouldn't have time to write, because they would be too busy, working on something else. It is hard to sacrifice your social life and weekends to write books when you need to keep a job or more at the same time. In this sense, when an author offers a book, he is disrespecting himself, insulting his past efforts to get him where he is now, and devaluing his own work. The idea that ebooks shouldn't cost more than a few dollars is actually already an underestimation of the value offered. And the idea that a person should get a book for free is contradictory to the purpose of obtaining value from the reading. That is why writers should never offer books and readers should always be willing to pay anything for what they want to read.”

BooksWritersPublishingAuthorsAuthorshipEbooksWriting BooksWriting Ebooks
Author:Robin Sacredfire
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“Technically, you cannot really own a book you bought; you can only own the sheets of paper your copy is printed on; unless, of course, you are the book’s publisher.”

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Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“At sixteen, poets think that if they publish in a magazine that will be it. When it happens, it is not it. Then they think it will be it when they publish in Poetry. No. The New Yorker? No. A book? Good reviews? The Something Prize? A Guggenheim? The National Book Award? The Nobel? No, no, no, no, no, no. Flying back from Stockholm, the Laureate knows that nothing will make it certain. The Laureate sighs.”

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Book:Essays After Eighty
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“I am still actively engaged at the job I like best, which is working with authors and promoting them. But, at this time in my life I have made it a rule to cosset myself by refusing to spend my time on things I plain straight don't like. Our list is a distinguished one. We have managed to keep free of the current phenomenon of big-business publishing; the book stores and our own salesmen expect us to give them books we believe in.”

PublishingRejection LetterEditor Of Your BookFarrar
Book:Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do
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“Bezos kept pushing for more. He asked Blake to exact better terms from the smallest publishers, who would go out of business if it weren't for the steady sales of their back catalogs on Amazon. Within the books group, the resulting program was dubbed the Gazelle Project because Bezos suggested to Blake in a meeting that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle. As part of the Gazelle Project, Blake's group categorized publishers in terms of their dependency n Amazon and then opened negotiations with the most vulnerable companies. Three book buyers at the time recall this effort. Blake herself said that Bezos meant the cheetah-and-gazelle analogy as a joke and it was carried too far. Yet the program clearly represented something real--an emerging realpolitik approach toward book publishers, an attitude whose ruthlessness startled even some Amazon employees. Soon after the Gazelle Project began, Amazon's lawyers heard about the name and insisted it be changed to the less incendiary Small Publisher Negotiation Program.”

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Book:The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
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“U.S academia has long operated under the mediocre slogan of “publish or perish”, not taking into account that very often writers may perish the minute they publish, if they do not have something meaningful to say. As though adding to human knowledge can occur simply by killing some trees and publishing (mostly recycling) a couple of articles a year or one book every few years. Many academics that operate according to this slogan do not seem to remember Dostoyevsky’s words that the most difficult thing in life is to actually say something new, or George Orwell who once stated: “Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books, one does not discover how bad the majority of them are.”

WritingCreativityPublishingCreative WritingAcademiaAcademic WritingAcademic ResearchAcademic Politics
Author:Louis Yako
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“Only a few short years ago, the average stay-at-home mom spent her relaxation time reading Jackie Collins and staring at the pool boy. Now, half of them are outselling Jackie Collins writing porn about the pool boy. The other half are writing reviews of them." [Surviving in the Amazon Jungle – How authors and reviewers can co-exist in a hostile environment (and run to court if they don’t), Blog post, March 20, 2014]”

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Author:Pete Morin
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“The purpose of the appeal was to open a subscription list by which signatories pledged themselves to support the cost of printing a limited edition, of which they themselves would be entitled to one or more copies, depending on the amount pledged. This was the usual means at the time [1836] of enabling the publication of an expensive book…”

PublishingBook PublishingCrow Funding
Book:The Prisoner of Kathmandu: Brian Hodgson in Nepal 1820-43
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“I started writing this book two years ago, to write the book I wish I had when I was finishing my undergrad or in my first years of grad school. I pack here all that I learned about writing and publishing papers. As an editor of scientific journals, it is always sad to see some manuscripts with potential but they don’t follow some basic rules of scientific writing. Also many people make silly mistakes in the submission to the journals or when responding to reviewers. I really hope this book can help many to make writing and publishing easier and even enjoyable. I made so it is short and easy to read, with many nice comics and figures that I hope make it even easier to read.”

SciencePublishingScientific WritingEarly Career Researchers
Book:A Pocket Guide to Scientific Writing and Publishing
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