“The biggest mistake is to assume that another writer's successful stra...” — M. J. Rose Quote

The biggest mistake is to assume that another writer's successful strategy will work for you, too. Publishers' marketers - and even freelance publicists who cost mega bucks - tend to do the same basic things for all books.

An author's ability to bring a marketing synopsis to the table - along with a great manuscript - makes a difference in what books get picked up. This is true for both fiction and nonfiction titles. You need to show your publisher what you've got in your marketing arsenal.

There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.

Back in 1999 and 2000, a few of us... a very few of us... Douglas Clegg, Seth Godin and I... offered free electronic copies of our books in an effort to reach an audience we otherwise wouldn't have reached and to test out a new marketing concept for books. Despite the industry screaming we were crazy, it worked.

I wanted to be able to write in the voice that I talk to my friends and assume that everybody would know what I was talking about.

When you've been in the tabloids as a drunken 'It-boy', people automatically assume you're thick.

People assume a lot of things about gymnasts - that the girls work too hard, it's way too much for them, they are too young to work so hard.

I think audiences sometimes mistakenly assume a quality performance comes from some great emotional disturbance rather than really intense concentration. Concentration and flow is what it's all about.

Everyone assumes it is just 'Wendy who works at Tesco' who goes to audition for 'X Factor,' and then their lives are changed, wham, like that. Me, I am someone who has tried for years in the music industry.