#publish

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) ↗

— Jack McClelland

#awards #humor #judging #publishers #publishing

Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary (and potentially subversive) alone with a book the whole razzmatazz of prizes, banquets, television spectaculars, bestseller lists, even literature courses, editors and authors, are all worthless. Unless a book finds lovers among those solitary readers, it will not live . . . or live for long. ↗

— John McGahern

#publishing #reading #business

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#bad-reviews #self-publishing #writing #men

Writers are the lunatic fringe of publishing. ↗

— Judith Rossner

#lunatic #publishing #writers

Always be "opportunity-ready" - The greatest door-opening opportunities often come in the form of objections. ↗

— Lisa Washington

#motivational #muse #publishing #writing #inspirational

I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book. ↗

— Beth Revis

#debut-author #first-drafts #inspiration #persistence #publishing

It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci. ↗

— Antoine Lavoisier

#almost #broad #broad range #daily #days

But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything. ↗

— David Baldacci

#about #anything #expectations #i #much

It was all a back-handed blessing, and my friends were the ones who kept the faith, read my work, and urged me to submit it to publishers (by sending it out for me - they would not hear no for an answer. ↗

— Leslie Banks

#blessing #faith #friends #hear #kept

At one time I thought the Editor of the Lancet would kindly publish a letter from me on the subject, but further reflection led me to doubt whether so insignificant an individual would be noticed without some special introduction. ↗

— William Banting

#editor #further #i #individual #insignificant