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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.

I am stunned by how much time and effort I must spend marketing my book and interacting with my readers. With social media, you don't just publish a book and figure you've done your part; your fans want to talk to you, have a conversation.

Obviously it makes a difference if an author has a public online profile of some sort, even just down to the level of having a moderately popular blog. Most books sell 5, 10, or 15 thousand copies. Most are midlist books. With those people, even a modest online presence can make a difference in sales.

Human attention is limited, and a massive number of newly browsable books from the long tail necessarily compete with the biggest best-sellers, just as cable siphons audience from the major networks, and just as the Web pulls viewers from TV.

Fame, money and the size of the market are not very important to me. What is, is writing a book that is worth doing and then publishing it. I don't write books for entertainment, for people to pass the time then throw away.

We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.

It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book.

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

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.

My friends found out that I was writing a book on Twitter. It didn't seem worth mentioning over dinner. They're all so successful themselves.