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, 2017June 6, 2026

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...

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

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

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

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

G.K. Chesterton

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

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

Dan Poynter

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Harlan Ellison

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

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

William Shawn

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.