Get Your First Book Published: And Make It a Success [Paperback]

Jason Shinder (Author), Jeff Herman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001

The official resource used by the AWP (Associated Writing Program) and the YMCA National Writer's Voice, Get Your First Book Published goes beyond the conventional advice for writers. The book includes hundreds of awards and publishers that are exclusively in the market for first-time authors or favorable to unpublished authors. Each award listing is complete with deadlines, names of previous award winners, advice from directors, and much more. Each publisher's listing represents large and small houses most interested in publishing first books, along with statistical information, previous first-time authors, and useful advice. The book also features the first-ever comprehensive national directory for chapbooks.

Inspirational as well as practical, Get Your First Book Published includes contributions from many of our most distinguished contemporary writers on how they got their first books published and the insights they've gained.

The book features ways to make your first book a success, and reveals the opportunities and resources available to writers to promote their work.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The title of this handy how-to manual might smack of hubris, but it is recommended by the Associated Writing Program, and the contents are part directory, part inspirational anecdotes. Drawn from responses of published writers to a questionnaire, the contents include writers' favorite first novels and their thoughts on their first books, addresses of publishers "favorable to unpublished first-book manuscripts," addresses for grants and contests for unpublished writers by state, and the obligatory chapters on negotiating contracts and publicizing one's debut novel. In tone and substance, this book is to unpublished writers what What Color Is Your Parachute is to the unemployed: comforting, inspiring, and possibly even useful. Shinder is a published writer (Among Women; Tales from the Couch: Writers on Therapy) who directs the Writing Program at Sundance Institute; Holman directs the Literary Horizons program for Poets and Writers, and Herman is the editor of Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. Recommended for public and academic libraries in spite of possible overlap with other directories. Robert Moore, Itworld.com, MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Career Press (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156414450X
• ISBN-13: 978-1564144508
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,558,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars RECYCLED AND TIRED FROM JEFF HERMAN, November 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Get Your First Book Published: And Make It a Success (Paperback)

Yet another way for Herman and cohorts to exploit writers. These data are available elsewhere. Don't believe for an infinitesimal span of time that any of these works will inspire you as a writer. Inspiration comes form within and from other writers in the writing community who are willing to share it free of charge. The industry insiders take authors' money and laugh at them all the way to the bank. Reading this book will get authors nowhere. They condescend. Don't buy it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, Disjointed Facts, and Questionable Advice, October 18, 2003

By 

Daniel L Edelen (Mt. Orab, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Your First Book Published: And Make It a Success (Paperback)

"Get Your First Book Published" is perhaps the most frustratingly unhelpful book on writing that I have ever encountered. So many deficiencies exist that picking one to start with would be maddening were it not for the title itself.

A better title for this book would have been "Middling Information on Entering Your Poem in Writing Contests from Authors You've Never Heard Of".

The book is loaded with info. The worth of that info is in question, though. Do a couple sections on famous writers of yesteryear and their first works truly get my first book published? Most of the example authors (Thoreau, Wharton, Hemingway) published so long ago that whatever rules the publishing industry had in their day are long since defunct. The stories of those books are not even inspiring - merely didactic.

Input from modern writers are included, too. But who are they? I've never heard of the authors cited. Most are poets. With the poetry market as moribund as a snail in a coma, this over-reliance on publishing poems reduces the usefulness of the book for people who truly want to get published in any other writing genre. Even for poets, the info provided is so meager as to hardly warrant anyone's attention.

Well, if you can't really get your work out there by a normal channel, there's always contests, right? The book has several listed. However, given your chances of winning, isn't this route to getting your book published more like winning the lottery than a serious, methodical, and professional approach?

Grant money is discussed, but once again, is this the way to get your book published? Most writers don't go this route. These monies are also usually distributed to writers' with work in the channel

Publishers are listed, but with more comprehensive lists of publishers available in other, more routinely updated books, why go with this one?

The actual process for getting your book from your vision to a reality within a hardcover is given just under ten pages of space in the book. Wow.

This is not to say that nothing here is usable. There are lists of professional writing organizations that offer health insurance, lists of other books on getting your book published(?), and some other semi-helpful lists. Still, considering the title, this book does everything but what it promises to help you do.

From poor organization of information to unusable advice by unknown authors, this book is a mess. How it even got published is beyond me. Absolutely pass on this one.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If you see this book...., July 12, 2003

By 

Jason (Berkshires, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Get Your First Book Published: And Make It a Success (Paperback)

If you see this book, don't just don't buy it. Make the sign of the cross. Get out a silver dagger. Find a chain of garlic.

Although this book is nicely written and well organized, following its principles are certain death for writers. I will only say that I personally was a very successful writer of books (well, by some measures, I was earning 6 figures writing all day
then I started reading one of the authors' books and even hiring them for their professional services. Following these instructions carefully, I went from earning 6 figures to bankruptcy in 2 years. When I went back to following my intuition rather than a book or a super agent, a few months ago, suddenly things started flowing my way again.

If you are a new writer, please, please, please don't buy this book. It will ruin your professional life. Follow the muse inside, be a decent person in the universe and allow opportunities to come to you. But please don't read this book!