230 Quotes About Publishing

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…

My hope is that you read these pages and know you aren’t alone when you submit your short work. You are part of a wonderful community of writers and editors who want to see you succeed. We want you to write what’s in your heart and then submit your work for the rest of us to read.

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.

People don't know they want to become an author until they meet me.

Finishing the next book is what I live for – it’s my drug of choice, and it’s what compels me to keep chasing the dream.

At least now I know what I only intuited before: there's a hired killer after every publisher. This killer may be distinguished, he may be illiterate, but he's in the pay of the darkest interests. And sometimes-oh, the cosmic irony-those interests, so vain and foolish, are our own.

Either my piece is a work of the highest rank, or it is not a work of the highest rank. In the latter (and more probable) case I myself am in favour of it not being printed. And in the former case it's a matter of indifference whether it's printed twenty or a hundred years sooner or later. After all, who asks whether the Critique of Pure Reason, for example, was written in 17x or y.

Americans...publish more books than any other country, but the per capita figure is surprisingly low. Of the English-speaking nations, the United States comes in fifth, behind the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The United Kingdom publishes 2,336 books per person, the United States 545.

Everything published goes down the same chute out of the overbright glare of publicity into oblivion.