Self Publishing Quotes

I wrote a blog post about how the book is different from the blog and why I chose to go the self-publishing route. I wrote guests posts for blogs like Techcrunch, which helped immensely and for which I'm very grateful. I used my social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Quora, and Pinterest. ~ James Altucher

If you enjoy knocking self-publishing writers, write something better first, then, knock on! ~ Robert Scott

Lately, because computer technology has made self-publishing an easier and less expensive venture, I'm getting a lot of review copies of amateur books by writers who would be better advised to hone their craft before committing it to print. The best thing you can do as a beginning writer is to write, write, write - and read, read, read. Concentrating on publication prematurely is a mistake. You don't pick up a violin and expect to play Carnegie Hall within the year - yet somehow people forget that writing also requires technical skills that need to be learned, practiced, honed. If I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought, with no prior experience, they could sit down and write a novel and instantly win awards and make their living as a writer, I'd be a rich woman today. It's unrealistic, and it's also mildly insulting to professional writers who have worked hard to perfect their craft. Of course, then you hear stories about people like J.K. Rowling, who did sit down with no prior experience and write a worldwide best-seller...but such people are as rare as hen's teeth. Every day I work with talented, accomplished writers who have many novels in print and awards to their name and who are 'still' struggling to make a living. The thing I often find myself wanting to say to new writers is: Write because you love writing, learn your craft, be patient, and be realistic. Anais Nin said about writing, "It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it bre ~ Terri Windling

Whatever you may have heard, self-publishing is not a short cut to anything. Except maybe insanity. Self-publishing, like every other kind of publishing, is hard work. You don't wake up one morning good at it. You have to work for that. ~ Zoe Winters

I believe that this notion of self-publishing, which is what Blogger and blogging are really about, is the next big wave of human communication. The last big wave was Web activity. Before that one it was e-mail. Instant messaging was an extension of e-mail, real-time e-mail. ~ Eric Schmidt

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

Other than being an artist, I've also wanted to be a writer since I was able to read. The simple fact is that I've aslo been a writer my whole life. Thanks to the magic of blogs and self-publishing, anyone can be a writer now. In fact, even before all of these new and exciting outlets became available anyone still could be a writer. It's actually a simple process. Just begin writing. You don't need anyone's permission, or a degree; hell, you don't even need an audience. Just write. The act of writing makes you a writer. So now that I've completed this book, I dub myself an Official Writer. ~ Cee Jay Inky Jones

I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point. ~ Joanna Penn

All indies self-publish but not all self-publishers are indie. ~ Orna Ross

You'll learn that the key to a great book is editing - grinding, buffing, and polishing - not writing. ~ Guy Kawasaki

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] ~ Pete Morin

I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing. ~ Sarah Dessen

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

Self-publishing in comics is core to the whole artform. There is no scarlet letter in comics as there still is, to some degree, in prose. As no publisher for a long time would publish serious work in comics, the only way a lot of it came out was because of self-publishing. Many of the greatest works of the medium are self-published. ~ Kieron Gillen

Self publishing' is not as easy as it is portrayed! When you think you have finished your book, proof read, proof read again, and again, and again. Don't believe it is ready until you have a hard copy proofed! ~ Phil Simpkin

I had been self-publishing for a number of years at that stage and selling my books at markets around Melbourne - little pocket books. I'd make them for 10 cents and sell them for a dollar. But I knew there was an audience who loved silly stuff so I just kept plugging away. ~ Andy Griffiths

What sells a book sells a book, same in traditional or self-publishing. You gotta shake your tail feathers. ~ Joni Rodgers

I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success. ~ Patti Davis

Self-publishing is easy. It's the stuff that comes before and after that's hard work. ~ Cindy Hiday

...by tragic historical coincidence a period of abysmal under-educating in literacy has coincided with this unexpected explosion of global self-publishing. Thus people who don't know their apostrophe from their elbow are positively invited to disseminate their writings to anyone on the planet stupid enough to double-click and scroll. ~ Lynne Truss

If you can't be of good character, write a good character. ~ Rosen Trevithick

I really started self-publishing on a serious level in 2002. Those smaller books did well, ended up moving from doing a series to compiling everything into a trade paperback in about 2005. ~ Tim Fish

I've had situations when I've actually encouraged authors to self-publish because their book was poor. Now one would conclude that I'm asking them to self-publish because their book was poor and the self-publishing warehouse is where all the poor books belong. But no, it's because "poor" is only my opinion, and I'm just one in millions of readers. ~ King Samuel Benson

The trick isn't to simply publish a book; the trick is to produce a quality book package to surround the book's content ~ Hank Quense

I have faced bullying before. Not in high school. Not in any school but when I published my now bestselling book series as an indie author back in 2010 through 2012 and became a target for indie publishing, especially in YA because I stood by Amazon self-publishing versus the traditional publishers. How I dealt with it? I kept doing what I love - writing and publishing, and giving my readers what they love. Indie publishing took off soon afterwards and now it is a valid and more desirable way to publish books. So the lesson learned is...don't let bullies stop you from doing what you love and from keeping you from giving your readers the books they love to read from you." - Kailin Gow in a National Radio Interview. ~ Kailin Gow

When self-publishing started, it was mostly people who really couldn't write. And they just wanted to get their book out, and they couldn't get traditional deals. ~ Caroline Leavitt

As Forest Gump would say.
"Self publishing is like a box of chocolates. You never know whatcha gonna ghet! ~ Joe King

A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur - or APE. ~ Guy Kawasaki

Starting your book is only the first five miles of a twenty-six-mile marathon that's one-third of a triathlon (authoring, publishing, and entrepreneuring). ~ Guy Kawasaki

Some books and authors are best sellers, but most aren't. It may be easier to self-publish than it is to traditionally publish, but in all honesty, it's harder to be a best seller self-publishing than it is with a house. ~ Amanda Hocking

Self-publishing is great, but I don't want to be an icon for it, or anything else. ~ Amanda Hocking

What I've come to learn with self-publishing is that if you want to provide readers with something of equal quality, it requires the same amount of time and expense. ~ Jane Green

I bristle at the implication that only with the help of a Big Six editor does a novel lose its self-indulgent aspects. Before the advent of self-publishing, there were plenty of self-indulgent novels on the shelves. ~ Jennifer Armintrout

Don't ask me what it means; ask me how it felt. ~ Jill Telford

I would have died, before a literary agent ever committed to my book. This is why I chose to empower myself by self publishing. ~ Mary Sage Nguyen

My biggest word of advice to any new, future writers thinking about diving into self-publishing: Edit. I don't care what you think, you didn't edit enough. Some people won't care that there's errors, its true, but enough of them will. And they paid for it, so they have a right to. So edit more. And then again. Really ... .Self-publishing is great, but it's not easy. ~ Amanda Hocking

To be professional you need to be professional. ~ Jayelle Cochran

Maybe self-publishing is going to be an extra step added to publishing. Maybe what's going to happen is you self-publish a book, someone notices it - an agent? - and it goes from there into the traditional sphere. ~ Victoria Strauss

I hate self-publishing; it's a real drag and it takes up a lot of space. ~ David Rees

I'd rather be lucky than good.' [Baseball player] Lefty Gomez said that, and I live and breathe that fortune-dwelling, fuzzy-dice-dangling creed. I was fantastically lucky to be taken in by Montag Press and its extraordinary managing editor, Charlie Franco. But I'm also a bit of a research freak and I'm convinced that homework helped me set up a situation where luck could flash and ignite. I spent an inordinate amount of time researching small and independent imprints. Here I reveal the flip side of thinking that any hours spent researching literary agents is wasted (in my unwashed opinion) while time spent reading and learning about quality independent publishers is essential. It's the best and only way to identify the little houses in that vibrant village that might be just right for your own book. (Interview with Ruuf Wangersen on sevencircumstances.com) ~ Ruuf Wangersen

I'm tired of the anonymity of being an unpublished author. I crave the anonymity of being self-published. ~ Tristan Durie

Today's marketing success comes from self-publishing web content that people want to share. It's not about gimmicks. It's not about paying an agency to interrupt others. ~ David Meerman Scott

Amanda Hocking and Hugh Howey have been successful in their self-publishing ventures. But notice that Hocking would prefer to write and hand over the editing, promotion, and selling to a traditional publisher. ~ Ellen Datlow

I have a hardcore attitude: a "self-published, ghost-written book" is wrong because the concept behind self publishing is that you have knowledge or emotions that you want to express. When
people read a book - particularly a self-published one - they have the right to expect that it's the person's writing, not cleaned-up dictation or slapping a name on a book that someone else wrote. ~ Guy Kawasaki

When you bring the scale and precision of data-driven platforms to the brilliance of great media executions, magic will happen. Delivering on that vision for the Independent Web is the mission of Federated Media Publishing. ~ John Battelle

Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue. ~ Deborah Smith

The profession is never going back to those days when a handful of wealthy people treated publishing like a hobby: one where the business can lose money because the family has lots of it to burn. Frankly, I don't think that model was ever sustainable, and it really only enriched a small number of writers. ~ Victor LaValle

Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?"
Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child's toy? "I own a few of them."
"Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those dolls. I open one to find another beneath it. I took away your gown to find you are still as clothed as you were a moment ago and I wonder how many more layers I will have to work through to get down to you - the doll I'm searching for. ~ Dominique Eastwick

Well, all I need is the air I breathe and a place to rest my head. ~ Hal Leonard Publishing Company

Basically, there's a good friend of mine who works at EMI Publishing, a publishing company. He had asked me - he was like, you know, do you know this girl, Amy Winehouse? She's in New York for a day. She's kind of meeting people to maybe work with on her second album. ~ Mark Ronson

If you have a song that you think sounds like another song you should contact the publishing company and say I have a song here, let's cut a deal that lets everyone walk away feeling good. ~ Wayne Coyne

OUTLANDER A Delta Book PUBLISHING HISTORY Delacorte Press hardcover edition published 1991 Delta trade paperback edition/July 2001 Published by Bantam Dell A Division of Random House, Inc. ~ Diana Gabaldon

From my 25+ years in publishing, I've observed that selling books does not occur without the author taking action. ~ W. Terry Whalin

We like to engage in a normal publishing effort, which is to act in a responsible manner and make sure the material is not likely to harm anyone, that it is properly investigated by quality news organizations, and by lawyers and human rights groups and so on. ~ Julian Assange

Automattic's mission has always been very aligned with WordPress itself, which is to democratise publishing. ~ Matt Mullenweg

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media ... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start. ~ Anne McCaffrey

We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money ... ~ Thomas Bernhard

The pain of an unpublished manuscript is akin to the trauma of bearing an unborn. ~ Anurag Shourie

It began to falter not when the book publishers who loved books gave way to those who preferred profits to reading. It happened when publishers and editors cut back on their drinking. If there is one national flower in book publishing, it is the martini. ~ Al Silverman

The Croft
East Dene, Sussex


August 11th, 1922


My dear Watson,

I have taken our discussion of this afternoon to heart, considered it carefully, and am prepared to modify my previous opinions.
I am amenable to your publishing your account of the incidents of 1903, specifically of the final case before my retirement, under the following conditions.
In addition to the usual changes that you would make to disguise actual people and places, I would suggest that you replace the entire scenario we encountered (I speak of Professor Presbury's garden. I shall not write of it further here) with monkey glands, or a similar extract from the testes of an ape or lemur, sent by some foreign mystery-man. Perhaps the monkey-extract could have the effect of making Professor Presbury move like an ape - he could be some kind of "creeping man," perhaps? - or possibly make him able to clamber up the sides of buildings and up trees. I would suggest that he grow a tail, but this might be too fanciful even for you, Watson, although no more fanciful than many of the rococo additions you have made in your histories to otherwise humdrum events in my life and work.
In addition, I have written the following speech, to be delivered by myself, at the end of your narrative. Please make certain that something much like this is there, in which I inveigh against living too long, and the foolish urges that push foolish people to do foolish things t ~ Neil Gaiman

No book or magazine article is for "everyone" so know your audience, then target them with your writing. ~ W. Terry Whalin

I'm working on my own work, my own publishing company. ~ John Van Hamersveld

Of course it was not only the law that interfered with our management of the paper. The politicians, too, soon took a hand. The Oberpräsident of Schleswig-Holstein, a man named Kürbis (which is German for pumpkin) forbad its publication; it appeared the next day, entitled Die Westküste [The West Coat]. This too was banned, and for a short time my brother's wish was fulfilled and we edited Die Grüne Front. I, too, had the gratification of seeing my original suggestion realised whn it became, in due course, Die Sturmglocke. Finally, the Oberpräsident forbad us from publishing any paper at all which was not purely concerned with technical agricultural matters. So we rechristened it Der Kürbis, aand the leading article consisted of variations on the subject of pumpking as given in the encyclopaedia; we expatiated on how pumkins flourish best in plenty of dung and on the disagreeable nature of their blossom's scwent. Thenceforth the paper resumed its original name of Das Landvolk and that was that. ~ Ernst Von Salomon

Anybody who listened to her talk or who read the zine she had begun publishing, Fantastic Fanzine, could easily become hypnotized by her words' raw force: This world teaches women to hate themselves, but I refuse to listen to its message. I'm not going to let boys come between me and my girlfriends. I'm not going to try and be your idea of sexy if sexy means being thin and helpless, tottering around on high heeled shoes. I'm not going to stay home at night hating my sex because if I go out then I'm asking for trouble. ~ Sara Marcus

One of the most egregiously stupid books I've ever come across. I would recommend reading this only because it's the epitome of all that is moronic, superficial, contrived, hollow, false and utterly laughable in publishing today. ~ Kris Saknussemm

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… ~ Charles Allen

I realized there might be monetary or financial reasons to jump in and write a 'Winter's Bone Retriumphs' or something, and nobody would object to me doing that in publishing. But it would be a waste of my time, and they always take a little longer than you thought they would take. ~ Daniel Woodrell

Being an author, writing a book was great fun. Publishing and marketing, not so fun. ~ Wynne Stevens

Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists. ~ Tommy Rettig

Road-rage is really another expression of inner rage. However, because driving is such a trigger for millions of people, we have labelled it "road-rage", directing the emotional dysfunction to an external circumstance rather than coming to terms with the internal condition. ~ Christopher Dines

If some modern-day David Brock wanted to defect from the conservative movement and write a tell-all focused solely on the financial chicanery of the entire right-wing nonprofit/think tank/publishing sphere, I would read the absolute heck out of it. ~ Alex Pareene

Whistleblowing and publishing should not be seen as a crime and certainly not as terrorism. ~ Sara Harrison

But really it says everything that's wrong about the publishing industry, that a quarter of a million people bought and read a sex and shopping novel that wasn't even written by one of those footballer girlfriends, and yet most of the shortlisted titles on the Orange Prize, which is an award for women writers, don't even sell ten thousand copies. It's just not right. ~ Sarra Manning

One of the greatest challenges facing humanity is that of being able to live with one another in a peaceful and civilized way. We all have our individual uniqueness and perceptions of how we believe the world ought to function. This creates conflict unless there is a deeper realization in the collective consciousness and an understanding that most human desires desecrate the beauty of the nowness of life. ~ Christopher Dines

I'm a professional writer and I consider it part of my job to publicise my work and these days part of that job is done online. ~ Sara Sheridan

With Instapaper, I can take a few months off. I can't stop publishing 'The Magazine' for two months and work on something else. ~ Marco Arment

They all agree, Italy is not what it used to be. What is? All my adult life I've heard how Silicon Valley used to be all orchards, how Atlanta used to be genteel, how publishing used to be run by gentlemen, how houses used to cost what a car costs now. All true, but what can you do but live now? ~ Frances Mayes

Even in my side of the world, I've been in publishing for what, 25 or 26 years, and it's gone from being a gentlemen's club to being a few big players, and it's very corporatised. ~ Iain Banks

The music publishing I own is fabulous recording. ~ Paul McCartney

WikiLeaks, for me, has not only that element in it of journalism publishing, but also the way in which it does it, with its - the concept we have of scientific journalism, I find very important and really appeals to me, that all of the source documents should be there. ~ Sarah Harrison

Literary science fiction is a very, very narrow band of the publishing business. I love science fiction in more of a pop-culture sense. And by the way, the line between science fiction and reality has blurred a lot in my life doing deep ocean expeditions and working on actual space projects and so on. So I tend to be more fascinated by the reality of the science-fiction world in which we live. ~ James Cameron

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. ~ Pat Walsh

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher. ~ Jeffery Deaver

I cannot replace an idol by turning away from it. I must turn toward something. As ~ Zondervan Publishing

Even though I got a late start, first publishing an essay when I was 50 years old, I've since written eight suspense novels. ~ Hallie Ephron

While writing my first 90 books, I was magazine editor, publisher, book publisher, executive, etc., so I was established in publishing. three of my seven or so books were biographies of sports stars and really opened doors for me in that area. ~ Jerry B. Jenkins

Yet the history of media shows that this is just the modern incarnation of the timeless complaint of the intellectual elite, every time technology makes publishing easier, that the wrong sort of people will use it to publish the wrong sorts of things. ~ Tom Standage

It's called publishing. It's how smart people install new ideas into other peoples brains. ~ Steven Magee