For years I'd understood that publishing in paperback was the kiss of death.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.
The books are all very, very different so the publishers really had to be different too.
A writer's definitive death is when no one reads his books anymore. That's the final death.
There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.
At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.
The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing.
So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.
Every famous writer was once an unknown writer. If publishers never published new writers, they wouldn't be publishing anyone at all after a while.
One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.
My grief is that the publishing world, the book writing world is an extraordinary shoddy, dirty, dingy world.