A Quote by Joseph Brodsky
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
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There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.
Between the reputation of the author living and the reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy.
Self-publishing provides more freedom and control, but it also provides more risk. Publishing provides more credibility and promotion, but your vision can also get lost in the bureaucratic machinery of the business. It's a tough decision to make.
The best author is a dead author, because he's out of your way and you own the play. Take what he has given you and use it for what you need.
If you don't put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There's the writer and there's the author. The author - you don't ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a way to not care - easier said than done.
I know publishing now more as an author than with occasional peaks inside those elite offices than as an industry insider. It was difficult publishing a novel the first time around, while working behind the scenes, knowing all that has to happen to make a book a success and to still make the leap as an author.
It is the performance of the business that matters. It is hard enough to figure out the future of the business. Do not try to figure out the future of the country or the world; focus on the business.
A funny thing about near-future stories: the future catches up to them. If the author is unlucky, the future catches up faster than the book can get out the door.
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now.
Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.
Every business is manmade. It is a result of individuals. It reflects the personalities and the business philosophy of the founders and those who have directed its affairs throughout its existence. If you want to have an understanding of any business, it is important to know the background of the people who started it and directed its past and the hopes and ambitions of those who are planning its future.
The future, for us, is not in bold and big deals. It is in selective deals, and I prefer to focus on one accretive target worth around €2 bn. than several deals worth €200 m.
The Internet obviously changes things; we've seen that in the music industry above all else. As an author, I'm now having to deal with the fact that it's happening in the publishing industry as well. And publishing is going through a very difficult time. Some view it as positive, some negative, but nobody really knows how to deal with it. If you're an author it looks very challenging because your work can be pirated so easily and there's very little you can do about it.
I've learned over the years that big-name writers might be treated fairly by the media conglomerates that dominate publishing today. But the average author isn't.
There were days when I hated politics. But I fought against hating the people on the other side because we were all in the same business - the business of building our country's future.
My wife and I set up the business, we were always very open about it and had a business author's name as many authors do.
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