Self-publishing authors are rocking Hollywood!

22 May, 2017

How do you get known? Consider the example of e-book author Mark Dawson. His first novel sold poorly until Amazon suggested that he offer it for free. BOOM! Fifty thousand downloads in one weekend. That built name recognition and an audience for the second e-book. Pretty neat strategy, eh? The resulting name recognition led to a TV series deal. Read all about it at The Guardian.

Self-publishing authors are rocking Hollywood!

May 22, 2017May 9, 2025

How do you get known? Consider the example of e-book author Mark Dawson. His first novel sold poorly until Amazon suggested that he Read More...

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.