I'd always loved to read - and come from a family of readers - but I never thought about writing as a career.
Why are we smiling when we loathe each other?’ ‘Why do we sell happiness to the readers of this magazine when we are profoundly unhappy ourselves, the slaves of fame?
Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with.
The best headlines are those that appeal to the reader's self-interest, that is, headlines based on reader benefits. They offer readers something they want - and get from you.
I think the press has an interest in communicating to its viewers or readers, and their viewers or readers drive profit for those news organizations, so I think those news organizations have a certain bias toward their own readers. Yeah, I think they are a special interest. Of course they are.
I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought.
As a publisher what you are trying to build is a long life for a book, to help it find its readers in many different ways, whether or not it made this list or got that review, etc. I'm sure some of that thinking has been useful to me as a writer as well.
Everything I publish is for my readers.
Believing in fate has probably always arisen in part because of the delights and terrors of storytelling. We have to realize--to learn--that in life we are not the readers but the authors of our own narratives.
The one thing I wished for my children is that they'd be readers.
Nature is my religion. And my desire. . . my ambition. . . the great goal I wish to achieve is to take my readers with me into the heart of this Nature. I love it, and I feel that they must love it. . . . . . if I can only get the two acquainted.
A book is always a dialogue with other readers and other books.
The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers
All true readers have a book, a moment when real life is never going to be able to compete with fiction again.
Writing for young readers is almost like dipping into a fountain of youth; for hours a day, I am a child again.
I trust, that your readers will not construe my words to mean, that I would not have gone to a 3 o'clock in the morning session, for the sake of defeating the Nebraska bill.
There has to be a kind of grassroots push, a movement, as it were, against the inherent isolationism of American capitalism as practiced in the publishing industry. There need to be grants and government support and a few publishers, mainstream and independent, who are not afraid to challenge American readership. We need to build a network of translators, publishers and readers. We hope that our annual anthology might provide an upsurge in interest for European fiction and then, as we publish it every year, become a habit to many readers.
As much as I encourage communication with my readers, I don't want reviews from them, simply because I don't need to be hamstrung in the middle of working on something.
I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful.
I do bookstore signings, and it seems to me that I get a variety of men and women, more women than I'd expect, and grown-ups among my readers.