The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines: More Than 1,600 Magazine Editors and Book Publishers Explain What They Are Looking for from Freelancers [Paperback]

Stephen Blake Mettee (Editor), Michelle Doland (Editor), Doris Hall (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 834 pages
• Publisher: Quill Driver Books; 5 edition (February 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884956513
• ISBN-13: 978-1884956515
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #719,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Blake Mettee, is the founder of Quill Driver Books, TheWriteThought.com where he posts an occasional blog. He is currently developing AMillionMetaphors.com, a resource for writers and others. His own books include "The Fast-Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal," used by colleges across the nation, "The Portable Writer's Conference," and "The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines." All three are Writer's Digest Book Club selections.

Quill Driver Books publishes nonfiction books on writing and publishing, business, health, and other genres. Mettee is semi-retired from Quill Driver Books, currently doing duty as acquisitions editor. During Mettee's 15-year tenure with QDB he shepherded two books into Book-of-the-Month Club selections and one onto the New York Times best-seller list. QDB's authors include, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, social media marketing expert Paul Gillin, and America's most popular medical columnist Peter H. Gott, M.D., as well as first-time authors.

QDB is recognized by industry periodical Book Marketing Update as one of the "Top 101 Independent Book Publishers" in the United States and by Writer's Digest as one the 100 most new-writer friendly book publishers in the U.S.
Mettee is always in the market for exceptional nonfiction books. You can e-mail him at: [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best organized guides for freelance writers., May 26, 2006

By 

Gregory A. Kompes "Author of 50 Fabulous Gay-... (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines: More Than 1,600 Magazine Editors and Book Publishers Explain What They Are Looking for from Freelancers (Paperback)

The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines is an excellent companion to Writer's Market and an essential reference book for freelance writers. Some of the included publications do cross-over, but for the most part, their different. And, it's great that a new edition has been released (2006).

The nice thing about The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines is that it provides both contact information and writer's guidelines for the listed publications.

Another thing I like about this reference book is the organization. It has publications organized alphabetically and then has the lists of categories in the back. It's much easier to find publications.

The downside of The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines is that it isn't updated annually. This makes using it a little more difficult because you have to do a cross reference to see if publications still exist, if the contacts still work there, and to make sure the pub hasn't moved. Of course, every query sent should be verified in this way before you send it, so you should be doing these things anyway.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly the Information You Need, August 15, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines: More Than 1,600 Magazine Editors and Book Publishers Explain What They Are Looking for from Freelancers (Paperback)

One of the first things I learned as a salesman was that you couldn't sell something to people if that wasn't what they wanted to buy. If you're trying to sell beef to vegetarians you had best not be to dependent on commissions for income. Yet in the publishing business fledgling authors think nothing of sending a mystery book to a magazine publisher that only publishes articles on car repair and who isn't interested in new authors at this time.

In the sales business it's called qualifying your prospects. Does this guy buy what I'm selling? Does he need more than he's able to get at the moment? For the freelance writer here is just about all the qualification you need. For some 1,600 publishers here's what they are looking for, what they pay, and often the opening sentence will tell you what you really want to know. For instance, one publisher opens his entry with: 'Please note we do not publish novels, poems, children's books, or short stories. We publish ____.' This alone can save you a lot of time, a lot of postage.

The information in the entries is directly from the publisher. It usually includes his web address so you can see what he is publishing now - and it's likely that this is what he's going to publish in the future.

Here is a tremendous amount of useful information at a very low price.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect everytime, September 22, 2010

By 

Lizza Cuevas "Carly's Mom" (cruz cali) - See all my reviews
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