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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.

I am not a total, complete nitwit when it comes to selling books. I promise you there will be unexpected things. Some of them I don't know yet. She's writing it all herself.

I did have a nice career in print, but traditional publishers don't always have the resources to create individualized marketing for their authors. Mine never figured out how to package books as hot as mine so that they found their full audience. Finally, I got frustrated enough over my lack of traction to walk away.

The publishing industry has always wanted to make books as cheaply and as ephemerally as they could; it's nothing new.

I'm always astonished when I go into Barnes & Noble at the number of people buying books, of course, but also at the variety of books they do buy and the extent to which they are not the big bestsellers.

Honestly, my sales pitch when I was a kid was, 'You don't want these Girl Scout cookies, do you?' If I had to push my own books, I'd stop writing. I hate the conflation of marketing and writing.

My books didn't fit a marketing niche.

I had several publishers, and they were all the same. They all wanted salacious. And everybody is writing autobiographies, and that's one reason why I'm not going to do it. If young Posh Spice can write her autobiography, then I don't want to write one!

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.