Quotes About Getting Published

#1. In some ways, getting published in children's literature is a little more open than publishing adult literature. It's less hinged on who you might know.

Marie Rutkoski

#2. 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

#3. Most writers, including myself, had to endure a lot of rejections before finally getting published. You could wallpaper a sizeable bathroom with the rejection slips I have received. Don't ever give up!

Jonathan Weeks

#4. Some people have an unrealistic expectation when it comes to getting published; the fact is most publishers will turn down your work which is why you need to be persistent.

Judith Guest

#5. My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.

Joseph Brodsky

#6. I never expected to earn money out of writing. In fact, the idea of getting published was too bourgeois. Then, in England, I realised that writing a book was something you could do without it being laughable.

Romesh Gunesekera

#7. I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.

Erica Jong

#8. Getting published is a matter of luck. The more we rewrite, the luckier we get.

Pierre Van Rooyen

#9. I think certainly if I'd started getting published when I was in my early twenties, I was quite sheltered then and didn't know anything much about the world. I hadn't had any direct experience of how the world works.

Richard K. Morgan

#10. The three secrets of getting published:

1. Never give up!
2. Never give up!
3. Never give up!

It doesn't matter how many rejection letters you get. Remember, you only need one acceptance letter.

Marshall S. Thomas

#11. I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.

Piers Anthony

#12. People loved to talk about how Frank O'Hara didn't really care about getting published. That doesn't jibe with my experience.

Eileen Myles

#13. While poetry was less professionalized than it is now, I still had this urge to win prizes and see my work in magazines, to get an "A," as though poetry could be graded. I wish I had been more patient and less frantic about getting published.

Denise Duhamel

#14. You let me believe all this time that I bound myself to you in exchange for getting published and being successful." Kathleen's mouth worked around the bitterness of the words. "You assumed that. And you know what they say, when you assume you make an ass out of ...

Rachel Caine

#15. No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

Dan Simmons

#16. I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published.

Fred Saberhagen

#17. There are a lot of bottlenecks to getting published. Publishers are only one of them. Having the time is another one. Feeling entitled is another one.

Denise Mina

#18. I'm a tattoo artist, and I went to school to paint, and I started writing and getting published.

David Labrava

#19. I've always been interested in both writing and music. When I first started getting published, I also worked as rehearsal pianist for the Boston Ballet, touring with them all over the U.S.A. and Europe - I wasn't making enough money from writing to support myself.

William Sleator

#20. Write a million words before thinking about getting published.

Carol Berg

#21. I was a prodigy who learned how difficult writing was only after getting published. I paid my dues later.

David Quammen

#22. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally got a book published. It was hard. I had no skills. I knew nothing about the business of getting published. So I had to keep working at it.

Janet Evanovich

#23. I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a way of getting published. I found those years to be among the most difficult of my life.

Jeffrey Eugenides

#24. I didn't go to graduate school, where all the important writers seemed to be getting their start. I didn't pursue getting published in literary magazines. I didn't even send out countless pitch letters and manuscripts to agents.

Jami Attenberg

#25. The whole process of getting a book published is just part of the process. The last of the process that I enjo

Victoria Chang

#26. I was lucky in getting my first book published; my first book was 'Bunnicula,' which I wrote with my late wife Debbie, for the fun of it.

James Howe

#27. People wanted to get me published, and my early work was so weird that they weren't getting anywhere. I thought, okay, I'll do something that's just a tad more normal.

Nell Zink

#28. It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.

Cynthia Kadohata

#29. When I began to read as an adult, I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date. When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.

Hilary Mantel

#30. I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me.

Lisa Alther

#31. My books should feel like you're getting a peek into a private world: a diary no one was meant to read. As soon as I start thinking, 'This book is going to be published,' my drawing becomes calculated and deliberate. It's one of the ways I trick myself.

Jeffrey Brown

#32. One thing I learned is that the park by the river in a recent story, 'Getting Closer,' is the same park by the river that appears for a moment near the end of 'The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad,' a story first published 23 years earlier. This echo at first irritated me, then pleased me deeply.

Steven Millhauser

#33. I'm a reader of Chinese literature, I like their films, but also: I've had great difficulty getting my work published in China; very little of it has been published there. The first two attempts to have all of my work published, for instance, were refused without any reason ever being given.

Salman Rushdie

#34. Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad. I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.

Nicole Krauss

#35. I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.

John Sayles

#36. It's still incredibly hard. Not just honing my craft but kicking down doors, getting my work published. Early on, I could have wallpapered my house with all the rejection letters sent my way. I put thousands of hours and pages into four novels that never saw the light of day.

Benjamin Percy

#37. It's not that war crimes stop as soon as a novel about them is published. Literature operates slowly, it is always inching toward bliss, never quite getting there.

Aleksandar Hemon

#38. Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say "No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing."

Sylvia Plath

#39. The hardest thing about writing a novel is getting it published.

Marianne Cushing

#40. I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.

Jojo Moyes

#41. Democrats were simply hoping to win some political points by getting their outlandish rhetoric published in the newspapers and heard on the talk shows.

John Doolittle

#42. I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

Iain Banks