Literary Sales Quotes

Among my books, the ones that sell best are for readers between the ages of 8 and 12. According to a study by the Association of American Publishers, the largest area of industry growth in 2014 was in the children and young adult category.

I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them.

A writer can spend a decade working obsessively on a novel, but in the commerce of publishing, many of the most important decisions about any book will be made based on very short pitches - from literary agent to editor to sales rep to bookstore buyer to a potential reader standing in the bookstore, asking, 'What's it about?'

No one ever expects poetry to sell...

There's a blockbuster side to Knopf, whether it's P. D. James or John le Carre or our best-selling books. We try to sell our writers as aggressively as those houses regarded as commercial with a capital C.

I believe if you've written a book, you have to stand up and say, 'Guys, buy the book.'

Anuj Bahari has always been a really good literary agent for me. What a good agent does is that he manages many of your business aspects so you can keep your time free for writing.

I took to saying, 'Look, tell you what: Pick it up; open it anywhere. Read three pages. If you can put it down again, I'll pay you a dollar. So I never lost any money on that bet, but I sold a lot of books.