A Quote by Eric Sykes

I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he'd printed. He said 'I'll just print another ten'. — © Eric Sykes
I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he'd printed. He said 'I'll just print another ten'.
In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.
Back in the pre-internet age there were pirate publishers, especially in the third world, who would print physical copies of books, sell them, and never inform the author/their agent/their publisher just trousering the money. I think we can agree that this was piracy?
'The Squickerwonkers' was the story I wrote when I was on 'The Hobbit.' And I brought it to Comic-Con and sold out a thousand copies I had printed.
When I found the book was condemned as soon as the book was printed, or rather as soon as it was set up ready to print, I held it in plates for a year nearly, waiting to see what would come out of all this discussion.
"Eight Days of Luke" was refused by another confused publisher on the grounds that children shouldn't strike matches. When my agent pointed out that David in the book was twelve years old, the publisher said that he was striking matches to summon the devil, then, and this couldn't be allowed.
I have always discouraged young writers from self-publishing, by which I mean going to a vanity publisher and spending your hard earned savings - say, some two-three lakhs - and getting your book printed. It's not published; it's printed!
If I had written a book saying, 'Ladies, your life is terrible,' I would have sold three copies. It's always better to laugh people into recognition.
What is striking is that from almost from the very beginning of certainly by September and October of 1963, as the book was being constructed, that [Alex] Haley was vetting - asking questions to the publisher and to the publisher's attorney regarding many of the things that Malcolm X was saying. He was worried that he would not have a book that would have the kind of sting that he wanted.
My dream scenario would be that you could go into a bookshop, examine copies of every book in print that they're able to offer, then for a fee have them produce in a minute or two a beautiful finished copy in a dust jacket that you would pay for and take home.
Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.
I'd sold the book first. Actually to a paperback publisher. I had nothing. I just had the idea.
I cranked out a book. I didn't expect it to do much, but it's sold 80,000 copies.
We sold 1.5 million copies of the 'Abracadabra' album and 26,000 copies of 'Italian X-Rays.'
I think people need to remember that a book isn't done after a few rewrites and a publisher isn't going to buy an 'undone' book so the hard part is making it a book that at least ten other people want to pay for to read.
I don't want to write things that people don't want to read. I would have no pleasure in producing something that sold 600 copies but that was considered very wonderful. I would prefer to sell 20,000 copies because the readers loved it. When I write books I don't actually think about the market in that way. I just tell myself the story. I don't think I'm talking to a 10-year-old boy or a six-year-old girl. I just write on the level the story seems to call for.
Only another writer, someone who had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door
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