The most difficult book I wrote was the fourth in a series of linked children’s books. It was like pulling teeth because the publisher wanted exactly the same but completely different. I’d much rather just do something completely different, even if there’s a risk of it going wrong.
Wikileaks in its essence is a publisher, pure and simple. They were very much in the same position as ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Guardian.’
No, my publisher has always done the marketing.
My grandfather was a newspaper publisher and his paper had all the comics in NYC, so some of my earliest memories are of reading the family paper and heading straight for the comics insert.
I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me.
Amazon makes money differently from a conventional publisher. It is an infrastructure player.
The trick was really finding the appropriate publisher for each of the projects I’d devised.
My first book didn’t even have a Canadian publisher. And that upset me, because I so wanted a readership up there.
I would hate to be that person who is, you know, the mystery writer who has to deliver a book every year to publisher X.
As things go digital, the notion of new editions will go away. A publisher can add video and assessment content at scale, make the change in 30 seconds and it’s just a software update.
Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen.
I really do love ‘Panama.’ But I’d also have to admit that right now, if I were driven to write another novel like that, I wouldn’t even try to find a publisher for it. It simply wouldn’t be published. I’d be writing it to put in my closet upstairs.
A publisher many years ago asked if I’d like to write a novel for £50. And I said, ‘Absolutely.’
I assumed ‘Freak the Mighty’ was probably too weird and melodramatic to find a publisher. I certainly never expected the book to have a profound influence on my career as a writer, but indeed it has.
When I was a publisher of CNN, I took responsibility for the actions of the network.
As a publisher, you should decide what content is free and what you’d pay for. You have to get the packaging right, but people will pay for content.
I didn’t think I would be an exceptional writer, and I thought I might be a useful publisher. I’ve never regretted it.
The decision came from the publisher. It certainly was cleared by Chicago. And then they come out with these fine sounding words about relation to readers and their obligation. It has nothing to do with that.
I was a journalist, but I was starving. And I’ve written fiction, but I couldn’t get a publisher. So, I was basically a very frustrated creative person working in advertising, and even there, I have a great idea that client won’t buy it.
It’s no easy task to either make money online as a publisher or to advertise your product in a world where attention is so fleeting and divided.
You won’t find a publisher until you have written the book and you won’t find the time till you sit down, stay down, and write it. No one else is going to do it and that is a fact.
I’m someone who speaks my mind, so it was important to me that my publisher value originality and creative expression.
I think there’s a responsibility of the publisher, of the company, to make sure the staple books that have been around for decades come out in a timely manner.
As the publisher of FSG and the custodian of its legacy, I have an interested insider’s view.
