Top 100 M.J. Rose Quotes
#1. You shouldn't talk about yourself all the time - most of us aren't for sale. Our books are. Talk about them. It's not a question of whether or not you're fascinating on a personal level - it's that your trivia and trials might not have any connection to the tone, tenor and sense of your books.
M.J. Rose
#2. I'm not a good writer. It takes me a long time to get there. I write and then rewrite and revise and do it over and over until I'm satisfied.
M.J. Rose
#3. Love, like energy, never dies. You lose people only in the moment. But time is a long road that circles back. At some point the missing turns into love and returns.
M.J. Rose
#4. I always miss my mom. Mother's Day would be just one more day I'd feel her absence but for the relentless commercialization. Thanks to that, this day is even harder to deal with.
M.J. Rose
#5. Buy other authors' books when you go to their events. Even if you aren't going to read it. Even if you are going to give it away. Even if you aren't interested. Not just for the author but for the bookstore. It's karma and just plain good manners.
M.J. Rose
#6. If no one knows your book is out there, no one will think about buying it. It's as simple as that.
M.J. Rose
#7. Before there was a death there had been a life, and before that life a death and that there would be a life after this death too. The circles would continue on without end and everyone who was once connected would be connected again.
M.J. Rose
#8. Perfume is magic. It's mystery. We recreate the smell of a flower. Of wood. Of grass. We capture the essence of life. Liquefy it. We store memories. We make dreams," he told her once. "What we do is a wonder, an art, and we have a responsibility to do it well.
M.J. Rose
#9. Men are monsters all, and something in them wants to force others to see the world the same way they see it.
M.J. Rose
#10. You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.
M.J. Rose
#11. 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
#12. I grew up in New York and have lived here all my life. I think it's the best city in the world and can write about it with gusto and fervor and passion.
M.J. Rose
#13. There's no one thing you can do to have success, but if you have a plan and you keep doing things, you'll eventually build to a success.
M.J. Rose
#14. The soul can recall what the mind forgets.
M.J. Rose
#15. 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
#16. If your mom is still around, you're so lucky.
M.J. Rose
#17. Regret isn't like grief; it never lessens, just stays the same. A little hard ball in the pit of your stomach.
M.J. Rose
#18. 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.
M.J. Rose
#19. They say every writer really just writes about one thing over and over. I guess my one thing is how the past impacts the present.
M.J. Rose
#20. I know depression is anger turned inward.
M.J. Rose
#21. 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.
M.J. Rose
#22. Find out if your radio interviewer has read your book, or you are going to have to do that part of the job on air. It's okay if they haven't, but it's always better to be prepared for what's coming.
M.J. Rose
#23. The Fiction Writer's Co-op has 51 members, from celebrated NYT bestsellers to promising newcomers, and a waiting list.
M.J. Rose
#24. I work on one book at a time. And yes, I am immersed. Six days a week for four to six hours a day. In between books, I stop writing for as much as two to three months, but during that time, I do research and think, plot and plan the book.
M.J. Rose
#25. In 1998, I self-published online in order to get a traditional deal.
M.J. Rose
#26. Do send out a newsletter when you have a new book out or are going on tour. Also list relevant event dates and notifications of contests you are running.
M.J. Rose
#27. I just want to sit in my room and write books.
M.J. Rose
#28. 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.
M.J. Rose
#29. The library at home when she was child had been her refuge. She gravitated to it. When she was anxious, just taking a book of a shelf calmed her. Opening the cover, feeling the paper's smoothness, smelling the sheets, the leather, even sometimes the ink, centered her.
M.J. Rose
#30. 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.
M.J. Rose
#31. Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Lee Child and George R. R. Martin write wildly different books. Their writing, plotting and styles have little or nothing in common. But they all write books and characters that readers find appealing.
M.J. Rose
#32. 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.
M.J. Rose
#33. But it's been a wonderful change. I've found myself. I am stronger than I have ever been. I am painting, and I'm good at it. I have goals and desires. That's a positive change. Not something to be afraid of.
M.J. Rose
#34. 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.
M.J. Rose
#35. If you want to talk to God, it's best to do it where you don't have to shout to have yourself heard.
M.J. Rose
#36. 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.
M.J. Rose
#37. We see what we want to see when we look at someone. Like a diamond before it has been cut. We can guess at its brilliance but can't see the faults until the stone has been cut and polished. Only then can we glimpse inside and see the occlusions and the clarity.
M.J. Rose
#38. 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.
M.J. Rose
#39. (E)very soul requires secret places for contemplation as well as open spaces for celebration.
M.J. Rose
#40. Spend lavishly on creams. Wash your hair with henna at the first sign of gray. Never spend one minute thinking about what you do not have. And most importantly, indulge in everything but love.
M.J. Rose
#41. I think that we need to live our lives for the present ... as if it is our one and only wild and wonderful life.
M.J. Rose
#42. I placed my new novel, 'The Book of Lost Fragrances', in Paris, knowing it would be a challenge. But the book belonged in the city that is one of the greatest perfume capitals of the world and has been since for more than three centuries.
M.J. Rose
#43. There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.
M.J. Rose
#44. As Oedipus learned, the more you run away from what is predetermined the more you run toward it.
M.J. Rose
#45. One Tweet can be heard 'round the world if the right people retweet it and the right people notice it on their feeds.
M.J. Rose
#46. Vera Caspary wrote thrillers - but not like any other author of her time, male or female. Her specialty was a specific type that she pioneered - the psycho thriller.
M.J. Rose
#47. 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.
M.J. Rose
#48. You have all the hallmarks of a seeker ... You chase special knowledge. You find threads of connections and then share them with people who need them. I can read it in the way you looked at me, the questions you ask, but more importantly, the ones you don't.
M.J. Rose
#49. Needing someone doesn't make you weak, it makes you feel. And feeling is how you know you're alive. -Jack Reacher
M.J. Rose
#50. Here's an idea: Spend two or three hours a day at least five days a week in front of a bookstore wearing a sandwich board with your bookcover on it while you chase and chat with anyone you can corral and who is willing to talk to you.
M.J. Rose
#51. A curious mind is the most important attribute any man or woman can possess.
M.J. Rose
#52. 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.
M.J. Rose
#53. Sales don't always have anything to do with good or brilliant or original. Sales are about appeal.
M.J. Rose
#54. I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes.
M.J. Rose
#55. PR and marketing doesn't sell books. It gets attention for them. It sends readers to bookstores and websites to read a few pages.
M.J. Rose
#56. More than 3,500 hardcover novels are published each year. Even the most avid reader buys fewer than one a week.
M.J. Rose
#57. 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.
M.J. Rose
#58. Jersey cows," Eva explained after Jac complimented the luxurious taste. "The butter and cream here are better than anywhere in the world."
"Not that we're prejudiced," Theo teased.
M.J. Rose
#59. Jacqueline Rose was so wonderful in so many ways, and I was really blessed to be her daughter. Of all the things I am because of her - there's no question: I am a writer because of her love of books.
M.J. Rose
#60. Don't add people to your subscriber list just because they once wrote you a note. Or once answered a note you wrote to them. Don't put your address book into your newsletter database. Let your readers sign up.
M.J. Rose
#61. One of the biggest differences between you and a traditionally published author is that a self-pubbed author is responsible for everything. Not just writing the book - but cover design, editing, producing, distribution, and publicity as well.
M.J. Rose
#62. Politicians are fools and the games they play are fools games.
M.J. Rose
#63. No, the sadness will soften, its edges will become less rough. In time missing him will be the way you love him.
M.J. Rose
#64. Sometimes love worked out, but more often it failed
M.J. Rose
#65. I thought if I put my book up on the Internet as a file that you could download, and I told people about it, maybe some people would download it and read it, and maybe I could get some response.
M.J. Rose
#66. Everyone in the tribe believed in life after death and the spirit's ability to be reborn and live again in a new body. The undying soul was unquestioned. Did not the leaves fall off the tree and become part of the soil that nourished the tree which spouted new leaves?
M.J. Rose
#67. I wouldn't think it happens easily or often, never for some people. I imagine a love like that is like a fire starting with a spark and growing into a blaze becoming an engulfing passion too hot for most people to withstand.
M.J. Rose
#68. Thriller novelists get asked - berated, sometimes - about whether their work glorifies bad behavior, even, exploits human tragedy for entertainment.
M.J. Rose
#69. 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.
M.J. Rose
#70. Sometimes what you mustn't do is just as just as important as what you must do.
M.J. Rose
#71. I might have created the phrase 'memory tools', but people have always found talismans to help them meditate into a state of hypnosis where they can access their past lives.
M.J. Rose
#72. Recognize that the great majority of us aren't trained actors and entertainers. Usually, it's not our faces, our bodies, our personas or our stage presence that sells our books. It's our stories, our visions and our voices.
M.J. Rose
#73. Smart authors, faced with storms, chose to create umbrellas. That's why a diverse group of authors banded together to create The Fiction Writer's Co-op, which will work to find innovative ways to promote each other's work and cheer each other on in a very competitive field.
M.J. Rose
#74. If I present a boring personal life to my readers, it's going to be harder for them to think of my novels as thrilling.
M.J. Rose
#75. Every story begins with a tremble of anticipation. At the start we may have an idea of our point of arrival, but what lies before us and makes us shudder is the journey, for that is all discovery.
M.J. Rose
#76. Fear stretching out ... is how you live 'forever'. You torture the seconds with worry, you anticipate everything that awaits you, you trouble time, and it becomes an agony of isolated, unconnected moments.
M.J. Rose
#77. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking our careers will come to a standstill, or worse, crash and burn if we aren't social media butterflies.
M.J. Rose
#78. 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.
M.J. Rose
#79. Too many people try to assuage pain that can never be eradicated. All you can do is salute the grief, acknowledge that you carry it, too, and that even though we all travel that path alone, we are not alone in traveling it.
M.J. Rose
#80. The Kabbalah says if we have not fulfilled our condition during one life, we must commence another ... until we have acquired the condition that fits our reunion with God.
M.J. Rose
#81. A comprehensive marketing plan involves both online and offline efforts to use and broaden your existing platform to promote your book.
M.J. Rose
#82. I grew up in New York, and for the first ten years of my life, we lived across from the Metropolitan Museum. When I was an adult, I moved back to that neighborhood and lived there again.
M.J. Rose
#83. There is no debate that social media is a great tool for networking with others in our industry. It can lead to friendships, support, and serendipitous connections with reviewers, agents, reporters, or editors.
M.J. Rose
#84. It's been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, 'Lip Service', up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.
M.J. Rose
#85. Art frees us from our prejudices and gives us the chance to become our best selves, individuals who dare to dream. And even if those dreams aren't always as pretty as we'd like, or don't conform, or frighten us, it is our duty to encourage art to flourish. All art. Every kind.
M.J. Rose
#86. There was an ingredient used in perfumes and remedies in the Middle Ages called 'momie' that is certainly one of the most fascinating I've come across.
M.J. Rose
#87. Estimates are that in 2012, more than 32 million books were available - the explosion, thanks to the ease of self-publishing; 2013 could see even more titles grace our virtual bookstores! That means we are going to be awash in covers and titles, plot descriptions and characters.
M.J. Rose
#88. All the marketing and advertising sells the book as what it is and hopes that the book will be displayed so that your readers can find it.
M.J. Rose
#89. The marketability, the success of a book, ultimately rests with whether or not people will find the concept/characters/title/cover appealing.
M.J. Rose
#90. An author's ability to bring a marketing synopsis to the table - along with a great manuscript - makes a difference in what books get picked up. This is true for both fiction and nonfiction titles. You need to show your publisher what you've got in your marketing arsenal.
M.J. Rose
#91. If ... if there is reincarnation, it's about forward motion. It has to be, or else we would all be forever stuck in the past.
M.J. Rose
#92. MWA and The Author's Guild refused to accept me as a member.
M.J. Rose
#93. 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.
M.J. Rose
#94. A mystery is a whodunit. You know what happened, but not how or who's behind it. A thriller, or a suspense, is a howdunit. You know what happened, and you usually know who did it, but you keep reading because you want to know how they pulled it off.
M.J. Rose
#95. We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.
M.J. Rose
#96. (T)here is a record in the universe and that if we're attuned to it, we can go back and see it, hear it again, use it.
M.J. Rose
#97. As a general rule, when you comment on a blog, make it knowledgeable or witty and, most of all, relevant to that post - then, simply sign it with your name and your book title. Resist the urge to brag or sell your book.
M.J. Rose
#98. They called it the Great War, but that implied worthiness and grandeur, not violence and helplessness and the utter waste and devastation our country, our city, our people endured.
M.J. Rose
#99. 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.
M.J. Rose
#100. 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.
M.J. Rose
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