"When it comes to my own work, I've long embraced piracy. I don't see piracy as any different than a friend borrowing a book from a friend, or a single book making its way through a household or a school classroom. To me, the value is in being read. The danger is in losing an audience."

"Getting a story published is almost as hard and merely a fraction as lucrative [as a novel] (if it pays anything at all), so pursue short stories only if you actually enjoy writing them."

"If you do want to get into creative work, you’re going to have to see it as a side hustle. Not your main gig. That’s just the way it is.  It could become your main gig — if you’re very, very lucky — but the chances are slim. It’s hard to make it work."

"What people SHOULD preface their rule-dispensing [for creative pursuits] with is something like this: 'Hey, this is the way it worked for me.  Maybe it'll work for you too?  And if not, no worries.  We're still pals.'"

"Even now, well after making the leap and publishing both fiction and researched nonfiction articles, I still get labeled as a full-time stay-at-home mom. Writing doesn't feel real to people. You get used to it."

"Success is something that must be defined on your terms.  Let no one else define it for you."

"The truly enduring stories, the narratives we encourage our friends to pick up and which happily make money for their creators over decades, the stories that outlast their creators, are the ones that reveal some core human truth."

"'Work hard,' is not only the most important, but actually, essential. I believe that if you didn't have to work for something, it can't truly be considered success. Luck doesn't count. I think success is allowed a certain pride and you can’t be proud of luck or even of being born smart, artistic, or talented. It's what you do with it that counts."

"Writing is often balanced with dozens of other obligations. Like working, cooking, cleaning, exercising, and picking up the kids from school. Nobody has the time to dedicate an entire day to just this activity. ... There is a popular misconception that successful writers have more time than the average person. That the only reason they do well is because they can spend hours each day on their books. That they don’t have to worry about pesky chores and errands like everyone else."

"Even if you are a great poet, it doesn't mean the road is easy.  It's very hard and it might take a while to be recognized."

"Results [of the writing life] vary. Side effects range from obscurity to the Nobel Prize."

"Your reading and entertainment choices have a direct impact on your success as a writer. If your days are spent looking at the 33 Epic Selfie Fails on Buzzfeed or keeping up with the Kardashians, then you’re limiting your ability to write something great. Garbage in, garbage out.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a fiction or a nonfiction writer—reading quality books is a good habit to build."

"These core two to four thousand readers will give new writers a shot. If the writer creates something unique, the aficionado will buy the next book too. And the book after that if the second one pays off too. This is how careers were made back in the day. Still are, even with the big publishing houses abandoning core Story categories for the big book."

"In practical terms, you'll have a better chance selling to the [sf genre] magazines if your story is (1) short and (2) science fiction rather than fantasy. My career followed that track; so did the careers of most other science fiction writers in the field."

"No one wants to buy a [self-help] book that proclaims such a measured, modest message from its cover.  To sell big, you have to over-promise."

"From my own experiences I've learned that quirky, different, fringe projects that may only be cult, often travel a lot better internationally. Mainstream comedians and TV shows that might be the biggest thing, on say, UK TV for a while, often don't sell a sausage around the world. Comics selling out arenas in the UK often can't sell a ticket in America or many other places."

"I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren't any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for."

"The ingredients for making a successful work to me are imagination, idea, composition, skill and dedication."

"What surprised me in my most recent reading?  Original subject matter, plot twists, character quirks, anomalous moments, unusual descriptive language, curious observations, sudden shifts in focus, psychological and emotional truth, the handling of time, and formal changes in approach."

"With its never-ending stream of reboots and sequels, modern culture has heightened the ideal that artists have a duty to capitalize on success."

"It makes them happy to give [lifetime achievement awards] to me. And they go out in the shed, but the people don't know that."

"If you do something peculiar and remarkable it might not be for mass consumption in your own country but there are 7 billion people in the world. People everywhere in the world will recognize and appreciate its innovation. A world cult is many times bigger than a single country's mainstream hit. So in the long run, being different can make commercial sense as well as artistic sense."

"The broadest, most inoffensive, mainstream hits are so often the least 'talked about.' They just happen and wash over a disconcerting majority once a week. Again, this is fine if you just want commercial success but it's soul destroying if you have loftier ambitions."

"Want to come up with great book ideas? Looking to improve your writing skills? Hoping to turn your writing into a profitable business? Then be a reader!"

"It's easy to be fooled into thinking there's a magic program, a specific path that only others know about, or a unique but mysterious road that you should take with a set number of steps to reach your dreams.  Nonsense.  You decide when.  You decide how."

"Here's a difficult concept to grasp and I'm sure I'll go to my grave trying to explain it. Just because a book becomes a bestseller doesn't make it something to emulate. There are a myriad of reasons why some books become bestsellers and still don't work as Stories."

"You should always try your hardest. The Office was the first thing I really tried my hardest at. I don't know why I started this radical new approach then, but I think it was one of those carpe diem type revelations. I came into the industry with a slightly older head on my shoulders than most and maybe deep down knew I shouldn't blow the opportunity. I put everything into it. A lifetime of experiences, and I couldn't have been prouder of the results. I don't even mean the success of the show, but simply the finished product. I was the laziest man in the world before I made The Office but now I'm addicted to that sort of success. Pride in my work. Now I'm a workaholic, because I realize that the hard work is sort of a reward in itself."

"You have to balance doing what you want with make a buck, which is hard.  But if you do what you love and keep that as a goal in your work, you'll find that people will eventually come to you for it.  Instead of you going to them for money, they'll come to you with money and hire you for who you are."

[The student writer] only vaguely knows that successful writers have overcome the difficulties which seem almost insuperable to him; he believes that accepted authors have some magic, or at the very lowest, some trade secret, which, if he is alert and attentive, he may surprise.  He suspects, further, that the teacher who offers his services knows that magic, and may drop a word about it which will prove an ['Open, Says Me'] to him.  In the hope of hearing it, or surprising it, he will sit doggedly through a series of instructions in story types and plot forming and technical problems which have no relation to his own dilemma.  He will buy or borrow every book with 'fiction' in the title; he will read any symposium by authors in which they tell their methods of work.  In almost every case, he will be disappointed.

"The performers who fall into obscurity are the ones who don't take risks."

"Plan for the long haul.  If you're extremely talented and lucky, you'll be famous in a few years.  Most of us, including me, are neither that talented nor lucky."

"Be a cocky little nobody. But work hard, be original and write about what you know."

"The most successful writers complete their words first thing in the morning. Sure, some work late in the evening or when they can find the time. But if you study the habits of professional authors, you'll see that most of them get up early and complete their words before the afternoon.  It's actually not that hard to write thousands of words on a daily basis. The trick is to follow a routine full of habits that reinforce this goal."

"How does one get lost?  Through incorrect aims, as I have said.  Through wanting literary fame too quickly.  From wanting money too soon.  If only we could remember, fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with our best, our lonely, our individual truths."

"I see a lot of people who want the things that come along with being a musician or artist, but don't know what they actually want to represent.  When you don't have a vision for what you want to put out there, it can lead to being influenced by those around you.  Everyone is going to have an opinion and give you advice and tell you how to do things.  But if you really want to do your thing and be successful doing something that's unique to you, then you need to have a clear idea of what you want.  You will be influenced by others, but you should have the strongest sense of what you're putting out there."

"I now knew the reason why this very talented writer kept getting to the one-yard line and was never able to score a touchdown—a working thriller. Instead of dedicating herself to nailing the form of the thriller/Story, she decided she was above it. She wanted the fruits of the labor (bestsellerdom) more than the labor itself (writing a brilliant and innovative hero at the mercy of the villain scene no matter if the book was ever published or not)."

"Aspiring writers are everywhere.  That small fact is one of the many things I've learned since announcing my first book deal.  Every distant relative and former coworker seems to know someone who wants to write a book, and they have no problem sending them directly to you."

"You need to write. This seems axiomatic because it is. The only way to amass a pile of words into a book is to shovel some every single day. No days off. You have to form this habit; without it you are screwed. I'm going to assume [you] already have this down. If you don't—you won't make it." 

"Being a good photographer is about more than talent.  You need to know a lot about business as well."

"The Oscars are like a political campaign.  Winning an Oscar is partly to do with how good your film is and partly to do with how tenacious you are during awards season."

"My success is based on luck. Not on how good I think my own books are."

"They pay me absurd amounts of money for something that I would do for free."

"I made a decision that forever changed my life. Instead of finding time to write, I made the commitment to get up in the morning and complete my words before doing anything else."

"There is a lot of talk in creative fields about separating those who are creative and make things from all the other people, but that's fucking bullshit.  I don't think you can be a good designer if you don't have a business sense; I don't think you can be a good director if you don't have a sense of production.  I think it's all a part of the job and, frankly, we all have the capacity for creative output."

"Understand that, from this point forward, in order to be successful in any one area of your life, you will need to neglect one or more other areas of your life. This means that, at all times, you will be either a bad parent, a bad writer, or a bad employee. Get used to being one of these things.  The trick is to make sure you're not being all three of these things all at once."

"The appetite for new writers in the field of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) is still enormous. If you write competently and if your story has any spark of life, you will sell it."

"Nowadays, it pays to write a lot."

"Success is about pushing yourself to a new level with what you create."

"Even if you go to school and work a lot of internships, you can only really make your way through experience and the process of trial and error.  You have to come up with your own method of doing things if you want to do something truly unique."

"When you write a book, and when it's first published, even if people love it and it wins awards, there's no guarantee it'll be long lived."

"Writing fiction, or at least trying to make a living by writing fiction, creates new ways for the writer to experience failure.  At first I was simply writing stories no one liked.  Then, once I got better, I started sending out the good stories to literary journals and getting rejected.  Then, once I started getting acceptances, I began receiving queries from agents who would then tell me I was not 'there' yet.  Then, once I got an agent, a year passed before he told me I was not progressing the way he had hoped, and we agreed to end our relationship.  Once I started writing short stories that were pretty good, everyone told me I really needed to write a novel.  Once I started writing short stories that were pretty good, everyone told me I really needed to write a novel.  Once I wrote a novel, it was rejected by everyone who read it.  Once I got enough publications to start applying for grants and awards, I didn't even come close to receiving any of them.  It was a weird cycle in which, instead of feeling happy I was getting better as a writer, I kept realizing how little I had actually progressed in the ways I started to quantify as success."

"After rejection No. 40, I started lying to my friends about what I did on the weekends.  They were amazed by how many times a person could repaint her apartment.  The truth was, I was embarrassed for my friends and family to know I was still working on the same story, the one nobody apparently wanted to read."

"I got published when I was in my 20s, and my first novel was a sensation.  And I thought, 'Oh, my God! It's going to be like this all the time!'  Then books two through eight were failures.  I had five different publishers.  Three of them went out of business.  Two of them did nothing for the book and wouldn't take my calls."

"One of the big roles of an agency today is to look at the book as content and to see how it can be sold in all these different ways: book to film, book to television, book to product.  The people who are making money in the industry are taking the book's content and leveraging it in a 360-degree way."

"If there is a secret to getting published—it's tenacity!

"You don't get sick days. A day you don't work is a day that accumulates nothing toward your needs. You're the hunter, now. You don't hunt? You don't eat."

"John Irving published five unsuccessful books before penning The World According to Garp, which quickly became an international best seller."

 This Year You Write Your Novel

"At this moment in my career, after publishing twenty-seven books and at least as many short stories, I still get rejected on a regular basis. Recently I wrote a story that every major magazine rejected. After going to the major presses, I went to the smaller ones. Nobody will publish it—nobody. So don't despair—accepting rejection is part of the job description."

The Great Discontent

Worlds of Wonder

"Just because they have a wide audience that will buy whatever they write does not mean they wrote a Story that worked."

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"High impact comes from a combination of two factors: great stories and beautiful writing. High-impact novels utilize what is best about literary and commercial fiction. They embrace a dichotomy. They do everything well and as a result sell astoundingly. The publishing industry has a convenient term for these wonder books: literary/commercial fiction."

The View from the Cheap Seats

"Deconstruct out-of-category novels and certain common factors emerge: characters we immediately care about, unique worlds, universal human experiences, high tension, plot layers, parallels, reversals, symbols, strong themes. But there's also an X factor: such fiction is personal, meaning that it directly reflects the author's own experience."

"You decide you're a best-selling author, then your mind will subtly reinforce that. It will begin noticing the things that will help you achieve that goal, and it will keep doing so until your goal is a reality."

"In our new century, literary fiction is selling the way that commercial novels are supposed to. ... Certain commercial novelists, on the other hand, are celebrated for their literary quality and simultaneously sell far better than most in their category."

Ray Bradbury - "Telling the Truth"

What is success in the 21st century? It's novels that invent their own unique form, spring from a personal place, enact a passionate intent, and prove it by reaching a broad readership. It's both great reviews and great sales. It's moving hearts and changing minds. It's winning accolades and winning the devotion of readers. It's finding a way through your fiction to convey what you alone see, yet we all come to accept as the truth.

"Writing is winning. Always. It's not the only win condition: but it's always the first step."

"Future You is watching. Don't disappoint them. You know you are capable of more, so get your ass in that chair and do the work. Every day. You know you're capable of it, and Future You is already thanking you from your mansion on the beach."

"I'm inspired when I literally can't put a book down.  I'll leave the dishes in the sink.  I'll bore friends and family talking about people they don't know and situations they've never read.  In short, I'm pitching to everyone around me.  If a book connects with me to that extent, it will connect with others.  The biggest seller of books is still word of mouth, and the most successful books are those people can't stop talkinga about, agents included."

"Writers seeking to break in are often so concerned with sounding salable that they put it before craft.  It's off-putting.  The more the writer seems focused on selling, the less genuine the craft tends to be.  Talk to me about your ideas, your characters, your worlds: That's how to excite me."

"Most reputable media outlets will at least pay something, and most reputable editors are going to pay more attention to clips from serious sources when considering you for assignments."

"My position?  Professional writers, or those aspiring to become professional writers, should not write for free."

"As for the overwhelming significance of a single article/book/poem/what-have-you, you can't get bogged down with that.  If you're doing this writing life the right way, you're working on a career, not one title."

"Act like a pro and charge money for your words or build your audience on social media where the only one profiting from your awesomeness is you, not some super-wealthy media mogul that's too cheap to pay writers."

"No one cares more about a writer's career than that writer.  You cede authority to other people at your own peril."

"If you're a good writer, you need to be able to write anywhere, anytime.  I remember once riding on a plane with David Mamet who was furiously scribbling away as passengers were loading onto the plane.  People were peering down, trying to see what he was actually writing.  I think that's great.  I respect that."

"Set goals and don't waste time waiting for other people to help you meet them."

"Above all, being a successful writer is a good life. You don't have to work at it all the time and you carry your office around in your head. And you are far more aware of the world around you."

"You don't need to line someone else's pockets to show off your writing skills.  It's easy enough to set up your own blog and display your talents there or to write carefully crafted pitches that make editors want to assign you stories even if you are a newbie.  (That's how I got my start.)"

"I thought that I would get to be a bestseller. ... The thing is that it took awhile.  It takes awhile to become established, and so you can't be discouraged if just one or two books don't sell."

"To be successful as a professional writer, you need to be able to do your craft anywhere, anytime."

"The motivation for my own authorial decision to turn my back on traditional publishers was both psychological and entrepreneurial ... My father was hard hit during the Depression, and it was difficult for him to get and hold a job.  He was always at the mercy of others, and I vowed early on never to be beholden to others to make my living.  Controlling my own destiny has always been one of my principal obsessions."

"I think a lot of new writers stop with the joy part.  They've written this, and it was so exciting, and it's so messy and flawed and glorious, and that's one-tenth of what you have to do."

"None of these excuses are valid.  None. Zip.  Zilch. Zero.  They don't pass the plumber test: Would a plumber say this and not be laughed out of the room?  You're a professional.  Professionals do not work for free.  Period."

"I didn't follow my gut.  After that, I said, I'm never doing that again.  And the book after that, when I went back to doing what I wanted to do, wound up being, at that point in time, the bestselling book we ever did."

"They are all based on one premise: what happens next?  If the reader doesn't care, the novel is a failure."

"The thing I did right was I was incredibly persistent.  I never gave up; I never didn't believe.  My attitude was, I don't care what it takes, this is what I want."

"If you made the bestseller list, who cares?  That doesn't make you a better person.  It means nothing.  It means people buy your books.  The question is, what do you do beyond your God-given gift?"

"I am convinced this helped bring in the readers.  There are no secret tricks.  Just solid dedicated work and then more dedicated work."

"In writing, as in so many pursuits, it's not the most gifted but the most determined who succeed."

"Diversify.  Do not rely on one revenue stream."

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.  All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up." (artist)

"People die of exposure.  As prestigious as you may think writing for certain websites may be, most editors know exactly what websites are legit and pay their writers.  They know you likely gave it away for free—which is definitely not how the pros conduct themselves."

"You now must read widely, weirdly, wisely. Read everything. Move outside your desired library. Read obscure British literature. Read poetry. Read non-fiction. Read science-fiction even though you hate science-fiction. If you want to do what everybody else is doing, fine, read only in your pre-existing sphere of influences."

"Worry about the writing and nothing else.  Don't worry about sales, agents, publishers, any of that. Get a dozen works under your belt of whatever length you feel comfortable writing, polish them within an inch of perfection, and get them out there. The rest can be a slow burn."

"Writers must produce.  And produce.  And produce.  ABW: 'Always Be Writing.' ... One book a year?  Psssh.  No.  Focus only on novels?  Not likely.  Writers are no longer as free to work in a single sphere of writerly existence.  Get used to writing short, long, script, game, non-fiction, etc."

"Use that time for writing your novel and for reading great books.  That will make your chances of getting published much stronger than any Facebook post ever will."

"No one on earth is going to care more about your career than you.  Not your agent, not your publisher, not friends in the industry.  At the end of the day, you need to take responsibility for your career."

"Why am I getting critically reviewed, a lot of award nominations, a lot of recognition, but [not] selling?  What I started realizing was, I wasn't branded.  I just didn't have a big enough audience."

"Put on your business hat and your writing hat.  You have to have both these days." (artist)

"There's no 'correct path' to becoming a real artist. You might think you'll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it's all bullshit, and it's all in your head. You're an artist when you say you are. And you're a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected."

"What I try to emphasize to beginning writers is what Jim [James] Rollins said to me once: 'It takes time.'  And what I've come to realize is, he didn't mean time chronologically.  He meant it takes time to build up your portfolio of books and then for one of those books to hit."

"To really succeed at self-publishing it seems right now that your best bet is to paint with a shotgun; you're not served by posting one book and walking away but posting a book or project (or product, if you can stand that word) every couple of months."

"I like that the writer is a worker.  It means craftsmen, the producers, the truly capable, will survive.  Do work.  Live to fight another day."

"Writing advice is valuable. ...You don't have to listen to any or all of it, but you damn sure should be considering it. If you're not thinking and learning about this craft of yours, then quit now."

"I'm occasionally baffled when young writers ask me for advice, and I give it, and then I see comments that say that none of my advice applies because I'm a best-selling author. As if I had spent my whole life as a best-selling author, and had never been anything else..."

"You need to be your best advocate.  You need to understand the financial side of the business, because if you don't, then you by default are going to be taken advantage of by people who do pay attention to those details."

"You're never going to make a living selling short stories."

"In my career, it's built on good books, delivered at regular intervals."

"That critical fan base comes as you write more ebooks, continually learn and offer something new with each book.  Deeper emotion, more twists, a new high concept or more raw gut appeal."

"I would have bet twenty to one against my own success, but by continuing I could lose only pen and paper; and if the one chance in twenty did turn up in my favor, then how much might I win!"

"I wish all writers realized that agents, publishers, book doctors, vanity presses, and how-to seminars, have a cost attached to them—sometimes a very high cost—with zero guarantees. You can be a writer, and have writer be a part of your identity, without any of them."

"If you do care about having a go at this writing thing as a proper career, do not write for exposure. Exposure cannot be measured, and you might as well write for any number of invisible things: the dreams of sleeping kittens, perhaps, or mystical unicorn turds. You should always be getting something measurable for your writing."

"I don't see any reason to think that the particular kind of literary writer who's dedicated to entertaining as well as to writing without cliché would not continue to have a shot at finding a commercial-sized audience. And the possibility of that larger audience is important."

"People always look for excuses. .... When I got started in the book business, I received 900 rejection letters. So you don’t look at the end result—at the Richard Bransons and Maria Popovas—and say, 'Well they have that thing that I don't.' They got that thing by showing up. I am really focused on helping people understand that not showing up is a failure of will more than it is a failure of birth."

"There's no single magic bullet that will make your writing career take off.  The secret is that you must do many things right and avoid mistakes that will undermine your career.  ...  Best practices are what separate the indie author professionals from the indie author wannabees.  Be the pro!  Even if you're already a bestseller, challenge yourself to do better."

"The moment you think you're done, and the moment you think you've made it, you're finished.  The best motivator is to remember what it's like to have nothing at all - to keep yourself hungry."

"Treat your writing as a business if you want it to be a main income, etc.  If you just want it to be a sideline, treat it as such."

"Read the first five pages. Count clichés. If you find one, the buzzer goes off: it's not a serious novel. A serious novelist notices clichés and eliminates them. The serious novelist doesn't write 'quiet as a mouse' or paint the world in clichéd moral terms. You could almost just substitute the adjective 'cliché-free' for 'serious.'"

"It's just never been a better time to be a writer.  It's a world of opportunity.  You can do whatever you want.  You can do it however you want.  It's magical to [say], 'You know what?  I'm going to write a new adult series'—and then write it.  It's amazing.  I don't have to convince anyone, I don't have to sell anyone on it.  I don't have to run it by an agent or a publisher.  I'll just do it."

"I think it was Stephen King who said you can choose to be an author or a writer, and that's a paraphrase, but the idea makes sense to me.  It's really cool to be an author and swan around, and, you know, people clap, but if you do too much of that, you can't write.  At least, I can't.  And so that's how you can do three books a year, and not go crazy—in fact, feel the happiest and the luckiest you've ever, ever felt."

"I started writing, and I kept on writing.  Although that may sound obvious, it's true.  People are always telling me that they would like to become a writer, but they don't actually write anything.  You have to write and continue to write."

"If your readers aren't .... using words like, 'wow,' 'incredible' and 'amazing,' then you're probably not taking the reader to an emotionally satisfying extreme.  Extreme joy and pleasure is a required reading experience if you want to turn readers into fans, and turn fans into super fans.  Wow books turn readers into evangelists."

"Write what you are comfortable with, write what you're interested in and what makes you happy.  Because if you are enjoying the writing experience, you're probably going to be more successful with it."

"Some writers hate the idea that luck plays a big part in success, but it does. But I've found that the harder you work, the luckier you get."