A biography for M. J. Rosehasn’t been written yet.
“I work on one book at a time. And yes, I am immersed. Six days a week for four to six hours a day. In between books, I stop writing for as much as two to three months, but during that time, I do research and think, plot and plan the book.”
“Social media buzz can lead to huge successes when people spread the word about something they love and want to share. But authors creating their own buzz? Making their own noise? It's hard to make a lot of noise on our own about our own work. Except, sadly, negative noise.”
“Don't add people to your subscriber list just because they once wrote you a note. Or once answered a note you wrote to them. Don't put your address book into your newsletter database. Let your readers sign up.”
“In my novels, there are twelve ancient 'memory tools,' all now lost. Each of the 'Reincarnationist' books revolves around a different tool.”
“You shouldn't talk about yourself all the time - most of us aren't for sale. Our books are. Talk about them. It's not a question of whether or not you're fascinating on a personal level - it's that your trivia and trials might not have any connection to the tone, tenor and sense of your books.”
“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.”
“Your agent should be invested in the success of your book past the contract stage. After all, if it sells well, she's going to be getting 15 percent of every dime you make. She can be your best advocate in fighting for your book - not just with editing and the cover, but with marketing and sales as well.”
“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.”
“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.”
“There is no debate that social media is a great tool for networking with others in our industry. It can lead to friendships, support, and serendipitous connections with reviewers, agents, reporters, or editors.”
“I'm realistic about my career as a novelist. I'm certainly not a superstar and far, far from a household name, but I feel successful.”
“It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking our careers will come to a standstill, or worse, crash and burn if we aren't social media butterflies.”
“When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out,and I'm just writing it down.”
“There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.”
“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.”
“Find out if your radio interviewer has read your book, or you are going to have to do that part of the job on air. It's okay if they haven't, but it's always better to be prepared for what's coming.”
“In 1998, I self-published online in order to get a traditional deal.”
“Don't send out a newsletter just to send out a newsletter. One newsletter a year that is really interesting is more beneficial than 12 that are boring. If you write two or three boring newsletters in a row, your readers will start to think you write boring books.”
“Back in 1999 and 2000, a few of us... a very few of us... Douglas Clegg, Seth Godin and I... offered free electronic copies of our books in an effort to reach an audience we otherwise wouldn't have reached and to test out a new marketing concept for books. Despite the industry screaming we were crazy, it worked.”
“I've always been fascinated by how the past impacts the present. For the first half of my career as a novelist, I wrote psychological suspense mysteries. I wanted to be a therapist but was told that while I was a fine diagnostician, I would be a terrible therapist because I wanted to solve everyone's problems.”