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There's a lot of books that I've purchased simply because of the cover design. On the other hand, there's certain books that, even if I'm very curious about the content, I can't bring myself to buy if I really dislike the cover.

There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.

Publishers were ever eager for authors to do their own publicity because nobody else was willing to do it for nothing. But then it became clear that if you want somebody to champion the story, there's nobody better than the person who made it all up.

Readers are always surprised to learn that authors have little or no input regarding the cover art for their books.

As an author on a corporate press, you have a lot less control over the finished product. I figure if I spend a couple years writing something, I want to be able to decide what the cover looks like and how it's going to be presented.

Authors need to decide if they want to keep forever to themselves, or share forever with a publisher who takes over half the cover price.

I picked books by their covers - the worse the cover, the more I wanted to read it.

I was unwise enough to actually mention this in public a few times, and in fact to point out that there were two versions of the book now. One of them had somebody else's name on the cover, one had my name on the cover.

Writers want publicity all the time, and they are always nagging their agents and publishers to give them more publicity, but, when you get it, it's kind of soul-destroying.

I had not expected to ever be in a position to able to say, 'Hey, see the magazine with J. Lo on the cover? They reviewed my book inside.'