Customer Reviews

Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents: Who They Are! What They Want! and How to Win Them Over! (Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, & Literary Agents)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you can only afford to buy one writer's guideline manual skip this book. It's okay but Herman's smug attitude will get on your nerves very quickly and I was extremely unsatisfied with the section on agents. Unless you want to use this as a supplement to Writer's Market I'd say leave this rather expensive dud in the store.

I haven't picked this book up, but just from the inside the book search, at least some of the information isn't correct. My former boss is still listed in this 2004 edition, even though he left the company in 2002, ditto with a couple of the other contacts. Be sure to check your information when you send queries out. I get at least 40 a month, and each one gets only a glance. Don't make it easy to throw your proposal away if right away you don't know what kind of books we publish or who the right person is to contact. Selling a book is like a job interview, imagine if you messed your interviewer's name up, would you honestly think you would get that job?

This book is fair. He is a little to negative for my taste, and his contempt for writers seems to come through a litte to much. Also, there are agents listed in his book that are known scams and con-artists, so he does not do that much research. If you want to find a good literary agent or publisher, go to the website "Preditors and Editors", and you find out all you need to know for free.

I tried this directory along with my Writer's Market. Herman's book looks really nice, but when I compared the two, I realized that Herman's is almost all fluff--especially in the listings. Plus, Herman's guide has less book publisher and agent listings, and absolutely no magazine listings.

It did have some interesting stuff in there, but is only worth buying if it is used as a supplement to Writer's Market. And definitely pay attention to the title, because this will only help you if you want to get a book published.

This book - and its predecessor editions - literally changed my life. No more sitting on slush piles, unread by junior executives in publishing houses! I am now a published author with a great literary agent - and all this is thanks to reading Herman's book. As he says, and as I can say more easily on his behalf, this really does knock the daylights out of Writer's Digest. If you want to get a book published, read, buy, mark and inwardly digest everything that Herman says - and good luck to you thereafter! Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan 2003) and lots of books in 2004 that I was able to get contracts for after reading Herman's book

Before you accept any information in this book at face value, double-check it with another source (preditorsandeditors is a great source). Some of the agents in this book are scam artists. The fact that the author (who, as another reviewer pointed out, comes across as smug and obnoxious), either didn't know who he was recommending, or didn't care, should be enough to steer people away from this book.

Read this book and other books by Jeff Herman, follow the advice and even if you are a Flight Attendant who has never published a book before, as I was, you can go from a having no books out to four books out, including a 3 book deal from a division of the largest publisher in the world. Heeellllo, I recommend this book!

Jeff Herman is the best in the business... I finally got published at age 50 ("Sales Power, the Silva Mind Method for Sales Professionals," published by Putnam in 1992) and have followed up with both books and self-improvement audio tape and CD albums, all sold to trade publishers by Jeff Herman. His book has chapters from people who work in the industry, and each of them is loaded with expertise. Learn what happens to your book when it gets to the acquisition editor, learn why decisions are made to give it further consideration... or not. The people who do the work will tell you, in the pages of this book. Then Jeff tells you about the editors he calls on, and what they want to buy. Do you think this information can help you find a publisher for your book? You can count on it! Don't wast time... buy this book and learn what to do to get your manuscript turned into a book and placed on the shelves.

I haven't read this book, so this isn't a review as such - just a point of fact. I discover I am cited on page 53 as having written 'the supernatural thriller' Death in the Family. This could simply be a copy-editing problem, but there is nothing even faintly supernatural about Death in the Family or any of my other books, so this seems to add weight to the above comments about inaccuracies.

After reading several revews, I can say that the problem is not Jeff Herman's book, but the publishing business itself. My comments are really about non-fiction but there is some truth in this for fiction writers as well. I used his book to send query letters, found an agent, my agent sold my book--but the advance is so tiny I can't afford to write the book. I'm single, I'm not going to inherit anything, I'm not a trust fund kid, and my book was apparently deemed less important than a celebrity tell-all. My advice? Be smart if you want to earn a living writing. Follow the example of that writer who spent FIFTEEN YEARS writing a bioghraphy of J.P. Morgan because her advance was so generous. And she lived off of the advance in New York City, no les! Why did she write about J.P.? Because she admired him? Had some experience in investing? Knew him personally? No, no, no. She wrote about him because all the Wall Street guys who will buy the book hoping to become rich like J.P. did are the reason her advance was so large. Publishing is a business, plain and simple.