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Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.

There's a difference between publicity and marketing. A lot of writers don't realize how much marketing goes on beyond the scenes, with sales reps and advanced reading copies, all that stuff that happens months before a book is published.

I've always viewed myself as a brand. When I started 10 years ago, that was very controversial. 'Marketing' and 'PR' were dirty words for the literary world, but that has changed. Once the book is finished, I want as many people as possible to read it.

I think I'm more marketing- and sales-oriented than others, and the notion of selling books continues to interest me.

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.

Commercial books don't even get covered. The reason why so many book reviews go out of business is because they cover a lot of stuff that nobody cares about. Imagine if the movie pages covered none of the big movies and all they covered were movies that you couldn't even find in the theater?

Publishers like a good buzz, and negative responses sell books just as well as positive ones.

My e-books sales have overtaken everything else, so I think all the marketing has become very much driven by the author now because of social media.

If there is going to be any meaningful sales, it's going to be through word of mouth and people recommending it to their book club and then a thousand more book clubs do it, and then you get into real sales numbers.