A Quote by Maaza Mengiste

Maybe it's the readers that make a book global. — © Maaza Mengiste
Maybe it's the readers that make a book global.

Quote Topics

A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers.
Don't hire anyone - no matter what they offer - who promises you they'll sell 'X' copies of your book. Every book is different. The best any marketing company or PR firm can do for your book is make potential readers aware of it.
A book is a book, but a movie is a movie. The more faithful you are, the more you'll come up with Harry Potter #1 and #2, which are like filmed books on tape. They're so petrified of turning off the readers that they make no concessions to the fact that they're trying to make a piece of cinema.
I've had mainstream readers complain that the book is really a romance, and romance readers complain that the book isn't a romance - with the same book! It really depends on the individual reader's expectations going into the story, and that's very hard to predict person to person.
Even if I only had 10 readers, I'd rather do the book for them than for a million readers online.
Books are just dead words on paper and it is the readers who bring the stories alive. Previously, writers wrote a book and sent it out into the world. A couple of months after publication letters from readers might arrive. And, leaving aside the professional reviews, it is really the reader's opinions that the writer needs. They vote for a book - and a writer - with their hard earned cash every time they go into a bookstore (or online - that's my age showing!) and buy a book.
I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point. After a while I arrive at an accommodation: Well, it's not the ideal, it's not the perfect object I wanted to make, but maybe?if I go ahead and finish it anyway?I can get it right next time. Maybe I can have another chance.
Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary (and potentially subversive) alone with a book the whole razzmatazz of prizes, banquets, television spectaculars, bestseller lists, even literature courses, editors and authors, are all worthless. Unless a book finds lovers among those solitary readers, it will not live . . . or live for long.
My books are comedies; I want to take my readers on a jet-setting romp, make them laugh, make them swoon at the beautiful settings, and maybe even make their mouths water at all the food.
As far as what readers can expect with 'Maybe Someday,' I'm not the type of writer who writes to educate or inform my readers. I simply write to entertain them.
I appreciate a book intended to be judged by its cover. The insincere readers are often weeded out while the sincere readers remain curious.
'The Good Soldier' is an odd and maybe even unique book. That it is a masterpiece, almost a perfect novel, comes as a repeated surprise even to readers who have read it before.
All readers are good readers, when they have the right book.
There are infimal readers, readers who want to read the same book over and over, but will never read the same book twice.
There are many readers of the book, who don't know anything about the authors and the artists. There is more than one author. It doesn't matter, if you can't make the reader dive into the story and surround him with that environment and those characters. That's an experience that lasts longer than figuring out who did what. I think that's what makes our working relationship better, it helps us to make a book that feels unique and not like different voices.
I have a lot of teenage readers and readers in their early twenties. My writing style appeals to them. And if they look at my picture on the back of the book, they don't see someone who looks like their mother.
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