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Growing up, books were my lifeline, and I owe a debt to those writers that can never be repaid. They saved my sanity and gave me a world I could escape to. If I can pay that forward to another person, that's all I ask.

I didn't do it for the money. I know a lot of people say that, but if I'd wanted to be rich, I'd have stayed working as a city lawyer. I gave that up eight years ago and took a massive drop in salary, and I didn't mind because I was doing what I loved. There's plenty of material for the other five books.

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better.

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.

I'll always write picture books - it's just what I do. I'd even do it if I wasn't being paid.

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

There's something deeply satisfying when it succeeds, but I'm not going to do another book just to put my name on something and make some money if it's not something I deeply care about.

When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco.