Quote

My books have occasionally been of mixed success. It's not like I have gone from triumph to triumph. I have had a couple of books do very, very well and a couple do very, very badly.

At the moment, I have it planned as a six or seven year experiment, but the books will only ever appear in bursts like this every couple of years and only with the best quality artists.

It seems the world of book publishing is constantly changing. Whether it was the rise of chain stores or their decline, or the digital revolution... fortunately, we have been able not only to adapt but to thrive.

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.

With a hardcover, you get two chances, a year apart, for the book to make an impact - often with a new cover featuring artfully crafted snippets of reviews, a new marketing campaign and maybe even a new publisher.

Books arrive in my head all at once, and then it becomes an 18-month process of getting it all down on paper.

Also, if nothing else, writing this book has really changed the way I experience bookstores. I have a whole different appreciation for the amount of work packed into even the slimmest volume on the shelves.

Publishers, naturally, loathe used books and have developed strategies to depress the secondhand market. They bring out new, even more expensive editions of popular textbooks every three to four years, in a classic cycle of planned obsolescence.

I work very hard every day not to have a lot of expectations. You just let go of the results, because a book will be on bookshelves and in libraries long after we're gone, and, in some ways, whatever happens is none of our business.

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