Quotes from M. J. Rose

As a self-published author, you have the choice. Embrace the power to create a book that is truly yours. Don't be a whiner or a copycat.

Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help.

When writers stop to sharpen pencils or get up and make coffee to procrastinate, they still stay in their heads with their characters. But when you zip over to read email or check your Facebook page, you get zapped out of the fictive dream. It's brutal on my writing.

There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.

One Tweet can be heard 'round the world if the right people retweet it and the right people notice it on their feeds.

In my novels, there are twelve ancient 'memory tools,' all now lost. Each of the 'Reincarnationist' books revolves around a different tool.

I think the most important thing we as writers can do is figure out how we define what success will mean to us and focus on that.

I began tailoring my books to cater to one or another universe of readers. I found it incredibly boring; and frankly, it felt stultifying. I'd previously been in advertising. I felt if I was going to create something to fit a specific market, I might as well have stayed with advertising.

Jacqueline Rose was so wonderful in so many ways, and I was really blessed to be her daughter. Of all the things I am because of her - there's no question: I am a writer because of her love of books.

If your mom is still around, you're so lucky.

Smart authors, faced with storms, chose to create umbrellas. That's why a diverse group of authors banded together to create The Fiction Writer's Co-op, which will work to find innovative ways to promote each other's work and cheer each other on in a very competitive field.

When I was in advertising, I did a great deal of work on television commercials. A co-worker and I wrote a screenplay, which led to a few more screenplays, and some were optioned by production companies. I was advised to move to California but didn't want to make the move. I decided to use another form of storytelling, so I wrote a novel.

It's so easy to look foolish online.

You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.

I've always felt writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I felt strongly if I was going to write, I would write what I wanted to, and if the 'market' didn't respond, there was nothing I could really do about it.

Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.

Estimates are that in 2012, more than 32 million books were available - the explosion, thanks to the ease of self-publishing; 2013 could see even more titles grace our virtual bookstores! That means we are going to be awash in covers and titles, plot descriptions and characters.

I know some authors who have gotten $25,000 advances and put it all into marketing, others who allocate $5,000 or $1,000.

Jenny Bell, you're quite an enigma. But that's true of every artist. And I'd rather be with a woman who can't be fully known than one who is all surface and no soul.

Does having three other children lessen your pain over the one who is lost? Not lessen the pain, no. But it keeps me wanting to draw breath. It keeps me alive. In nurturing and caring for another child you can love the child you lost.

I could smell his scent; a mixture of amber, honey and apples mixed with his own skin's oils and the brisk winter air. Something deep inside me responded to the fragrance. I felt as if I could lose myself in it. Wrap it around me like a cashmere shawl & be forever warmed.