Publishing Milestone Quotes

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list.

I published my first poem in 'The Paris Review' in 1980.

I've been bragging for over 25 years that my first New York Times bestseller was a book I copied from the U.S. Government Printing Office!

I remember the first time I held my book, my first book in my hands. I cannot tell you how it moved me.

I didn't write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which were rejected by every children's book publisher in America. The first book of mine to be accepted for publication was ELLA ENCHANTED, and not one but two publishers wanted it. That day, April 17, 1996, was one of the happiest in my life.

I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.

The first accepted piece of writing is the most exciting. No other publishing experience matches it. Perhaps jaundice sets in, or expectations are raised, or one starts to think that one is better than is the truth.

Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.

'Legends Walking' was the first of my books to go to a second printing based on strong initial orders, but much of that printing never found its audience.

I had almost nothing published until I had something published in 'Sports Illustrated.' I started there as a fact-checker two weeks after I got out of college and was there for almost 20 years.

The best moment is when you walk into a bookstore and see a pile of your books - that is the oddest experience in the world!

'Fallen Too Far' was my first NYT bestseller. That changed my life.

The moment when the finished book or, better yet, a tightly packed carton of finished books arrives on my doorstep is the moment of truth, of culmination; its bliss lasts as much as five minutes, until the first typographical error or production flaw is noticed.

Nobody sells books like J.K. Rowling. We have a rule in publishing: Never compare anything to 'Harry Potter' because it's like lightning in a bottle.

I had my success too soon. Three books published with Scribner's in New York before I was 30.

When I wrote the first Betsy book, 'Undead and Unwed,' I had no idea, none, that it would be a career-defining, genre-defining book, the first of over a dozen in the series, the first of over 70 published books, the first on my road to the best-seller list, the first on my road to being published in 15 countries.

I've just got to get that album out. I have to get it out, if it's the last thing I do.

My first novel was a critical success in a matter of weeks.

Instead of taking a year off, I started 'Dreamers of the Day' exactly 36 hours after I sent the manuscript for 'A Thread of Grace' to the publisher!

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.

It took me eight books to finally be at a point in my career where I could come out with a book and say, 'This is meant to be a funny book,' and we didn't have to make any bones about it.

On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox.

My first published work was when I was 19, in 'Playgirl.' It was an odd experience but exciting.

To be quite honest, the joyful relief of the publication of my book was short-lived.

I was nearly 40 when I published my first book. I was a slow starter - or rather, I was slow to gather my work together, though I had published translations, mainly of the Italian poet Montale, by then.