oliver yeh

In January I got a call from my agent. She said, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘You’ve been getting death threats, and we need to show them to you. Legal has talked it over. If we don’t show them to you, and you’re not aware of them, then if something happens to you, we are liable, and your parents can sue us. So we’re going to send you a packet of these death threats, and you can look through them, and verify that you have seen them.’ That was a very interesting afternoon.

- Bret Easton Ellis on reactions to American Psycho.

(Source: theparisreview.org)

Despite the swirl of anxieties people can get into about how to cope in the every changing world of literary commerce, getting published isn’t the ultimate challenge. Making good work is. The rest will take care of itself. Or it won’t. But if it doesn’t, you’ll still be an artist. Success alone won’t make you one.

- Adam Haslett, award winning author of You Are Not a Stranger Here.

(Source: thedaysofyore.com)

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

- Margaret Atwood

(Source: Guardian)

When you agree on books, you agree on life.

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A quote from “… a British editor [who acquired] nearly every project sent to her by a particular agent who was also a good friend. People in the industry seemed to resent the close relationship…” — Betsy Lerner in How Agents Operate and the important role of relationships between agent and editor/publishing house.

I think this quote extends beyond the editor/agent relationship…

(Source: pw.org)