I don’t think anyone will believe me, but I’ve never been pressured by a publisher to churn out a book.
I want my writing to reach people. I don’t write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to me. The marketing, segmenting etc., can be done by your publisher, not you.
And the big issue here, I think, is that the publisher took over the editorial pages, a guy named Jeff Johnson. He’s an accountant from Chicago, doesn’t know anything about what newspapers are supposed to be about, and he made a decision to get rid of the column.
That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers’ and the nation’s perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher’s choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns.
This never happens, but I was writing with my friend Ryan Hurd and Eric Arjes, and we wrote this song called ‘Last Turn Home.’ The next day, my publisher emailed it to Tim McGraw’s label. He listened to it, and I think within the week, he went into the studio and recorded it. And that never happens.
I see publishers bemoaning their fate and saying that this is the end of publishing. No! Publishers will recreate themselves. Some of that comes from my experience as a print publisher.
When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time… Of course it’s not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.
If your agent or publisher is jumping up and down at the thought of your novel, it’s because they’re picturing the movie poster on the side of the bus.
If you’re making a film about a band or a songwriter or whomever, there’s a publisher, there’s a record label, and there are people who are vested interests in that film. But with back-up singers, because they did stuff for everybody, there’s no one party that has any vested interest in seeing the story told.
And at some point I would like to talk my publisher into doing an anthology of my poetry alongside some teen readers’ poetry. It would be fun, and really wonderful to get their stuff out there.
Ages ago, when I published ‘Amelia’s Notebook,’ I’d sent it to traditional publishers I’d been working with, but nobody knew what to do with it. Tricycle was this small publisher who didn’t know any better, and they took a chance.
If you’re a publisher and you forbid deep linking into your site, or have a paid wall or registration requirement, then you’re making it hard to ‘point to’ your content. When no one points to your content, your content is harder to find because search uses links as a proxy for popularity.
Authors need to decide if they want to keep forever to themselves, or share forever with a publisher who takes over half the cover price.
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.
To make a bestseller, there are more customers than just your customers: Selling to the end-user is just one piece of the puzzle. In my case, I needed to first sell myself to the publisher to get marketing support and national retail distribution.
The fact must never be forgotten that no magazine publisher in the United States could give what it is giving to the reader each month if it were not for the revenue which the advertiser brings the magazine.
Everyone in the book’s ecology, starting with the author and including the publisher, the distributor, the booksellers, the libraries, and ending up with the reader, should benefit from a healthy book trade.
When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success.
While I’ve never asked my publisher to pull one of my books off the shelves, I have deleted tweets or blog posts that have drawn criticism.
I believe my publisher has shown a great deal of faith in me over a lot of years but I’m not prepared to be so arrogant to say that the long-term literary value of my work would compensate them for a financial failure.
I’d sold the book first. Actually to a paperback publisher. I had nothing. I just had the idea.
When it comes to my songs I’m confident. Back in 1967, I would go to a publisher’s office, and tell them they just had to listen to my music.
I had brought up from Chile a contract agent whose cover was that of a newspaper publisher in Santiago, a young, very talented man, named Dave Phillips, who later on carved quite a career for himself in the agency.
‘Simon’ was always a word-of-mouth book. When it came out in 2015, I don’t know that anybody thought that ‘Simon’ could be mainstream. Publisher Harper Collins loved it in-house, but it wasn’t a lead title. Nobody is more surprised than me that it’s a film. It’s the little book that could.
Whether it’s a song you write or a television show or a movie or professional wrestling, there are three components to IP law. There is publishing, there are writers, and there are performers. The publisher is always the owner.
A publisher saw one of my historical novels and thought I would write an admirable detective story, so she offered me a two-book contract, and I grabbed it.
I know people think that having a regular publisher is more prestigious, there is even this idea that self-publishing is a result of being snubbed. But self-publishing really appeals to me.
The rumor is Chu Hing really wanted the ‘Green Turtle’ to be Chinese American, but the publisher didn’t think that would sell. If you read those books, the hero almost always has his back facing the camera so you can’t see his face. When he turns around, his face is obscured.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning could write a poem two pages long. Could she have brought it to a music publisher?
I had always been fascinated by comics, but it had taken me several weeks to make up my mind to buy ‘Watchmen’; for someone on a publisher’s assistant’s salary, it was some quite unheard-of sum of money.
When people heard id Software’s being acquired, everybody just assumed it would be Activision or EA. Why would we even consider going with a publisher that wasn’t of that same size?
It wasn’t slung together by a producer and a publisher. We decided we were going to take hold of our music and let it evolve organically.
I got into an argument with my original publisher. They wanted me to do ‘Kitty’ and nothing else. I wanted to do lots of things, not just ‘Kitty’ books.
I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That’s what the best agents do.
Like most new writers, I could only hope that one day one publisher might agree to publish one of my books; I couldn’t imagine several publishers all wanting to buy the first book I’d written.
We as artists are actively encouraged – by other authors, your agent, publisher, and society – not to think about money, strategy, how to manage your career, how to create a brand, because we’re supposed to focus on the art.
As a publisher, you have no direct relationship with advertisers.
I didn’t have to struggle at all to get an agent and a publisher. Everything fell into my lap.
You come out of your MFA program with a cogent clutch of stories, trying to get an agent interested, and she or he admits these are quality, sure, but this agent actually needs something the publisher can make money on. So you get kind of bullied by the market into writing a novel.
I was never confident about finishing a book, but friends encouraged me. When I finished my first book, it was accepted by a publisher right away and became an instant bestseller. One male critic called it the most shocking book he ever read.
‘Wild at Heart’ created a set of expectations maybe, partly, on my part, certainly on my publisher’s part, but also in the world out there, that my next books would be as remarkable.
I work very closely with my publisher and just give them tons and tons of music, and then they link that with different songwriters and stuff. I’m basically a workaholic. So, I figured I might as well just start working outside.
Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.
I’ll read any anthologies or collection I can get my hands on. If I find a book mentioned in ‘Publisher’s Weekly,’ and it looks like it will be dark, I’ll track it down.
When I realized that I can invest in my own marketing and do exactly what I think needs to be done – well, then it just feels like, what is the benefit of having a publisher?
The royalty any author gets is dependent on his track record and marketability and often on the price of his book, too. The higher you price a book, the more comfortable your publisher will be in paying you a higher royalty.
The ‘beach read’ has become such a ubiquitous concept in contemporary literature that we assume it has always been around. In fact, the term only emerged in the 1990s, usually in book trade publications such as ‘Booklist’ and ‘Publisher’s Weekly.’
Although I still write, research and investigate, my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.
