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" When I was a kid, I read many of my mom's books. Sometimes, there were mysteries, but there were no delineations, and my mother never talked about book genres. Nor did we differentiate genres in school. "

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" I've always felt writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I felt strongly if I was going to write, I would write what I wanted to, and if the 'market' didn't respond, there was nothing I could really do about it. "

M. J. Rose

Always

Writing

Nothing

" Don't hire anyone - no matter what they offer - who promises you they'll sell 'X' copies of your book. Every book is different. The best any marketing company or PR firm can do for your book is make potential readers aware of it. "

" Don't send out a newsletter just to send out a newsletter. One newsletter a year that is really interesting is more beneficial than 12 that are boring. If you write two or three boring newsletters in a row, your readers will start to think you write boring books. "

" I'm realistic about my career as a novelist. I'm certainly not a superstar and far, far from a household name, but I feel successful. "

" I've always been fascinated by the concept of reincarnation. I learned that many brilliant people were interested in reincarnation, including Carl Jung. I'm a big Jungian. So I began writing novels involving theories integrating past and present, even if the past element in the novel took place 500 or 1,000 years ago. "

" I know one writer who has been subscribing authors without their permission and sending out what she thinks are helpful advice sheets, but they come off as if she's a know-it-all. She thinks she's marketing herself and her work. All she's really doing is turning readers off. "

" I think that we need to live our lives for the present... as if it is our one and only wild and wonderful life. "

" I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries. "

" The marketability, the success of a book, ultimately rests with whether or not people will find the concept/characters/title/cover appealing. "

" From the very beginning, I envisioned success as selling enough books so I could keep getting published and continue to write what I wanted to without compromising. "

" Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book. "

" There are many traditionally published authors who have hated the cover their publisher's decided on. Or the title or the marketing or the advertising. But there was nothing they could do about it. "

" Ask your editor or ask your agent to find out what the house's goals are for your book before it comes out. Get some sense of expectations so you are prepared. "

" A curious mind is the most important attribute any man or woman can possess. "

" Social media buzz can lead to huge successes when people spread the word about something they love and want to share. But authors creating their own buzz? Making their own noise? It's hard to make a lot of noise on our own about our own work. Except, sadly, negative noise. "

" Save yourself some grief. Check with the publicist you hire to see what other books he/she has coming out at the same time as yours. "

" Sales don't always have anything to do with good or brilliant or original. Sales are about appeal. "

" When writers stop to sharpen pencils or get up and make coffee to procrastinate, they still stay in their heads with their characters. But when you zip over to read email or check your Facebook page, you get zapped out of the fictive dream. It's brutal on my writing. "

" Books on their own aren't insanely expensive compared to other things; three large cappuccinos cost more than a paperback, and two and a half gallons of gas cost more than a paperback. "

" When I do a workshop, there is always at least one author who comes up afterward and asks if I'll take a look at his or her book and consider blurbing it. For some reason, I can turn someone down in e-mail, but when he or she is looking me in the eye, I cave. "

" Don't spend more than 10% of your marketing/PR budget on a trailer. Trailers have to be marketed, too. So, far too many authors wind up marketing their trailers instead of their books. "

M. J. Rose

Books

Budget

" The biggest mistake is to assume that another writer's successful strategy will work for you, too. Publishers' marketers - and even freelance publicists who cost mega bucks - tend to do the same basic things for all books. "

" Your agent should be invested in the success of your book past the contract stage. After all, if it sells well, she's going to be getting 15 percent of every dime you make. She can be your best advocate in fighting for your book - not just with editing and the cover, but with marketing and sales as well. "

" In 1998, I self-published online in order to get a traditional deal. "

" Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help. "

" I just want to sit in my room and write books. "

" The most satisfying thrillers send ordinary people into battle against the forces of evil - otherwise known as greed, ego, rage, fear and laziness - and bring them out bloodied but whole. "

" I was an avid reader, but never thought seriously about writing a novel until I was in my thirties. I took no formal fiction-writing courses and never thought about these categories when I wrote my first novel. "

" MWA and The Author's Guild refused to accept me as a member. "

M. J. Rose

Guild

" When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out,and I'm just writing it down. "