I have always discouraged young writers from self-publishing, by which I mean going to a vanity publisher and spending your hard earned savings - say, some two-three lakhs - and getting your book printed. It's not published; it's printed!
Publishers see free downloads as threatening the sales of the book.
In 2008, when I wrote Book 1 and Book 2, the head of the publishing house suggested twelve books - one each month. For practical reasons, that didn't work out.
I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.
You need to be naive enough to do things differently. No big publishing house would have allowed us to co-create a fully designed, four color business book in landscape format - because it was contrary to the publishing industry logic. However, we thought of Business Model Generation as a product, not just a book - similar to Apple products.
To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation.
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
I used to joke that my next book would be about puppies that have lost a chew toy, and everywhere they went, people were nice and gave them things until they found the chew toy.
The first black girl book I fell in love with was most likely 'Please, Puppy, Please' by Spike Lee and Tonya Lee.
Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.
I'm the farthest thing from a bibliophile. I purge my collection regularly: If I haven't read a book in a couple of years, I try to give it to someone who will.
I'd love to perform in India, but I don't book the gigs. It's one of the few places I haven't played. One of the Indian instruments that I love is the sitar. I played it on some of my songs, including 'Pyramid of Cheops' and 'Crucify.'
I've never been a collector - just a consumer - and these days unless a book is signed to me by another author, I don't normally have any qualms about passing it to a friend or donating it to the library.
One of the advantages of the book's having been out there for more than a quarter century is that there's been time for people to report back on what it's done for them.
Sometimes I have a melody in my head; sometimes it's just a verse. I read lines from a book or movies that I watch and grab a few quotes and start writing on paper. From there, I record a really rough version and work on the song.
I know the Bible pretty well. I'm not one of those guys who can immediately start quoting every book, but usually I know where to look to find certain themes.
Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
I'm the minority in my house sometimes. My wife is Swedish, and we go to Sweden and everyone is rattling off in Swedish. It's like, 'OK, I can just read a book.'
What's interesting about 'The Brave and Bold #85' is it's a book in which I re-created, or created, Green Arrow.
When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.
