A Quote by Jason Epstein

Trade book publishing is by nature a cottage industry, decentralized, improvisational, personal; best performed by small groups of like-minded people, devoted to their craft, jealous of their autonomy, sensitive to the needs of writers and to the diverse interests of readers. If money were their primary goal, these people would probably have chosen other careers.

Jason Epstein

Quote Topics

Autonomy Best Book Book Publishing Careers Chosen Cottage Craft Decentralized Devoted Diverse Goal Groups Industry Interests Jealous Like Minded Money Nature Needs Other People Performed Personal Primary Publishing Readers Sensitive Small Small Group Small Groups Trade Were Would Writers

Quote Author

Jason Epstein
American - Editor
Born: January 26, 1928

There is an enormous shadow industry of scammers and amateurs who prey on aspiring writers, who divert people from the real publishing industry into this shadow world of vanity publishing and fee-charging agents.

Victoria Strauss

We're into an age of excessive individuals, all right. We're into the age were independence, autonomy, convenience, sometimes selfishness. The new trinity of me, myself and I, seems to dominate. We know that's contrary to the very nature of the human person. The very nature of the human person needs God and needs other people.

Timothy M. Dolan

People from other teams want to play in St. Louis and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money. I already got my money. It's about winning and that's it. It's about accomplishing my goal and my goal is to try to win. If this organization shifts the other way then I have to go the other way.

Albert Pujols

I think our literary tradition has to evolve, has to explore its form and its spirit through writers and thinkers, rather than let the lazy, easy traditional narrative - which is controlled by the publishing industry - roll all over the readers and dominate the market. I think our readers and cinemagoers have been trained to read and watch very mainstream stuff. It's like being given sleeping pills. It sends people to a non-reflective sleep state.

Xiaolu Guo

In company with people of your own trade you ordinarily speak of other writers' books. The better the writers the less they will speak about what they have written themselves. Joyce was a very great writer and he would only explain what he was doing to jerks. Other writers that he respected were supposed to be able to know what he was doing by reading it.

Ernest Hemingway

The goal of immigration policy should be what is in the best interests of the American people as a whole. I would recommend limiting immigration to spouses and minor children of citizens, plus additional immigrants chosen for special skills needed in the U.S.

Jan C. Ting

Say you're an American novelist, published by the largest publishing house in the world. Their goal is to make as much money from you as possible, to have as many people read your book in as many formats as possible. How can you hope to speak intimately to the numbers of people that represent the book sales required?

Joshua Cohen

Viola Davis keeps saying this movie should be called The Big Responsibility instead of The Help, because there were so many groups of people that you wanna do right by. You want to do right by Southerners and the African-American community and the readers of the book and the people that grew up with domestics and the people who worked as domestics. There's a million different groups that you're trying to please and satisfy that you're worried about not loving what comes across onscreen.

Emma Stone

The best way to make money is not to have money as your primary goal. I've seen great people come into the business world primarily motivated to make money. Almost without exception they failed.

Ross Perot

Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.

Alexandra Fuller

I want my books to exist in the literary world, not only in the art world. I am interested in having a dialogue with other writers, and the readers of those writers. Someone who is reading a book of mine might not have visited my exhibitions related to it, but can still have a full, literary experience with that book. This would be a completely different experience from stepping into the show, not having read the book. One form is not illustrative of the other.

Jill Magid

Diverse groups of problem solvers outperformed the groups of the best individuals at solving complex problems. The reason: the diverse groups got stuck less often than the smart individuals, who tended to think similarly.

Scott E. Page

Hollywood is a cottage industry involving a very small number of people, and around the edges are enormous numbers of people trying to get into it and work.

Peter Stone

Many writers hate the shilling process, and I understand that. However, it's really the only thing about the publication process you can somewhat control. You can't affect reviews. But you can try to find your book an audience. One of the problems with the book publishing industry is that their publicity efforts tend to be spent on people who already read, and know how to discover, literary fiction.

Hanya Yanagihara

The profession is never going back to those days when a handful of wealthy people treated publishing like a hobby: one where the business can lose money because the family has lots of it to burn. Frankly, I don't think that model was ever sustainable, and it really only enriched a small number of writers.