Publishing House Quotes

• The successful publishing house is the one that can guess ahead, not the one that imitates the past.

  Helen Jacobs

  Successful, Past, House

  7 Copy quote

• First, I was a fact checker for Zagat and then I was an editorial assistant for HarperCollins publishing house.

  Anna Chlumsky

  Assistants, Firsts, Facts

  4 Copy quote

• To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

  Joely Richardson

  Responsibility, Fiction, Facts

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• We are interested in stifling the sale of this book. We believe that this can be best accomplished by refusing to be stampeded into giving it publicity...The less discussion there is concerning it the more sales resistance will be created. We therefore appeal to you to refrain from comment on this book...It is our conviction that a general compliance with this request will sound the warning to other publishing houses against engaging in this type of venture. (Signed) Richard E. Gutstadt, Director.

  Madison Grant

  Book, Believe, Giving

  10 Copy quote

• Acquiring an aggressive, honest, and communicative agent with actual relationships in real-live New York publishing houses is, in my opinion, the single most important move that a writer who aspires to be successful can make.

  John Lescroart

  New York, Real, Moving

  4 Copy quote

• I have been blessed to have the same editor and work for a great publishing house.

  Vince Flynn

  Blessed, Editors, Has Beens

  "Vince Flynn Talks 'The Last Man,' His Newest Mitch Rapp Best-Seller (Q&A)". Interview With Andy Lewis, www.hollywoodreporter.com. December 10, 2012.

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• My first job out of college was as an editorial assistant in a New York publishing house. Being an editorial assistant is the purgatory would-be editors must endure before they can ascend the ladder and begin acquiring books on their own. I spent a year filing paperwork, writing copy, and typing rejection letters.

  Lincoln Child

  Jobs, New York, Book

  4 Copy quote

• I think the judging process is full of integrity, compared to some other prizes around the world. The fact that they change the panel of judges every year keeps it from becoming corrupt. I think it's very difficult if you've got judges for life; obviously relationships are cultivated between judges and authors, and publishing houses.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Change, Integrity, Thinking

  "Kazuo Ishiguro remembers when" By Adam Dunn, www.cnn.com.

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• Corporations that are turning over these huge profits can own everything: the media, the universities, the mines, the weapons industry, insurance hospitals, drug companies, non-governmental organisations. They can buy judges, journalists, politicians, publishing houses, television stations, bookshops and even activists. This kind of monopoly, this cross-ownership of businesses, has to stop.

  Arundhati Roy

  Media, Judging, Drug

  "Arundhati Roy: 'The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution'". Interview with Arun Gupta, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2011.

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• He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the "guru" - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.

  Shimon Peres

  Teacher, Men, Editors

  "Israel's Statesman of Peace". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. May 2, 2003.

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• A lot of people get to the point in their careers where blurbs are ghostwritten for them, because they're like, "I want to support this person, it's good for my career," and so they get someone at the publishing house to do it, or they copy something from the press release. People write their own blurbs, absolutely, some huge percentage of the time.

  Emily Gould

  Writing, Careers, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think you have to have a publishing house that offers you some support.

  Jasmine Cresswell

  Thinking, Support, Offers

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• The [CIA] Agency has owned outright more than 240 Media operations around the world, including newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, radio and television stations, and wire services, and has partially controlled many more.

  Michael Parenti

  Agency, Media, Wire

  13 Copy quote

• Since my first novel was rescued from a slush pile, it makes me sad that most publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nor are many willing to take chances on novels that are not deemed immediately "marketable."

  Katherine Paterson

  Firsts, Take A Chance, Accepting

  Source: www.hbook.com

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• I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.

  Daniel Handler

  Children, Writing, School

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 16, 2005.

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• Don't wait for success, but for the respect and interest of those who read you. At the start it could be a classmate, someone who shares your interests. Before sending off the manuscript for a novel to a publishing house, it would be a good idea to try writing short stories, and publishing them in a local magazine.

  Dacia Maraini

  Writing, Ideas, Waiting

  "A ‘special’ writer. Dacia Maraini in interview". Interview with Vincenza Fanizza, www.threemonkeysonline.com.

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• All major publishing houses have these big fat biographies sitting there, waiting for people to die. All you have to do is slap on the end and put in on the market. It's that kind of commoditization and completion of your life before you die - and this kind of imposition of a public idea of self that replaces the actual living self - that I find so frightening.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Ideas, Self, People

  "Chuck Palahniuk in conversation with Tom Spanbauer". Interview with Kathryn Borel, www.believermag.com. May 2014.

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• The job of an editor in a publishing house is the dullest, hardest, most exciting, exasperating and rewarding of perhaps any job in the world.

  John Hall Wheelock

  Jobs, Editors, World

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• Indeed, being a beginner is very difficult right now. Book publishers are in a crisis, sales are dwindling, and publishing houses are losing money, doing their best to survive. It's a sign of the times, the emergence of new kinds of entertainment -- there's nothing we can do about it. I don't think books will perish for good. They could become less widespread, though, falling even further behind movies and computer games. But we shouldn't be afraid of this, because books will always remain the entertainment of choice for intelligent people, of whom there are still many in this world.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Fall, Intelligent

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• If you look at the publishers I've worked with, generally, they're a great bunch. Creation is unlike any other publishing house you can think of. The people I've worked with have integrity and intelligence and, almost always, less money than ideas.

  Peter Sotos

  Integrity, Thinking, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.

  Dave Eggers

  Book, Editors, Certain

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• I hate this word 'graphic novel.' It is a term publishing houses have created for the bourgeois so they wouldn't be ashamed of buying comics... I'm not a graphic novelist. I am a cartoonist and I make comics and I am very happy about it.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Hate, Novelists, Buying

  5 Copy quote

• There are those who believe we have need of more literature, of a large international publishing house, of a great peace newspaper, or the like. I am rather skeptical about this idea.

  Fredrik Bajer

  Believe, Ideas, Needs

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• I used to be with a publishing house called Roosevelt Music. A gentleman there told me he had seen Peggy Lee perform Fever in Las Vegas and I found out later she wanted to record it.

  Otis Blackwell

  Vegas, Gentleman, Fever

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• I spoke to my agent and learned that a Hollywood scout had seen my proposal in one of the publishing houses, and had faxed it to Hollywood, where it was generating a lot of interest

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Hollywood, Agents, Proposal

  4 Copy quote