Customer Reviews

Get Your First Book Published: And Make It a Success

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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.

"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.

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!

This book contains a lot of useful information. The list of contests available to unpublished writers is especially helpful. The essay by Terry McMillan on publicizing a first novel is both sobering and inspiring. Nonetheless, the book is marred by slopping editing and proofreading. The addresses and even names of many of the contests mentioned in the early chapters are marred by typographical errors. For example, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund is referred to as the "Barbara Denting" fund in the book. Since I could spot these errors in some of the contests that I happen to know something about, I can't help wondering what errors might lurk in the information I don't know much about. I recommend that you read it, but double check it, as well!

With the assistance of Amy Holman and Jeff Herman, Jason Shinder has created a superbly presented single-volume compendium of information and advice for writers seeking to break into print with Get Your First Book Published And Make It A Success. This collection of innovative tools, advice, resources, and real-life examples focuses on the needs of the first-time, hitherto unpublished authors and lists hundreds of awards and publishers targeted specifically to these aspiring writers. Each award listing includes deadlines, names of previous award winners, advice from directors, and more. Publisher listings include both small and large presses with a specific interest in publishing first time authors. There are also chapters devoted to making a first book a commercial success and resources, services and supports (including a listing for the Midwest Book Review) available to first-time authors in making their mark within the highly competitive world of publishing. If you are an aspiring writer seeking practical and effective information on becoming published, begin with a careful reading of Jason Shinder's Get Your First Book Published!

This book is a wonderful resource for new writers and those who've been around quite a while. Despite what a few crabapples say, it is easy to find what you're looking for, and nicely written, too. I highly recommend it.