26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this book to understand what publishers want, July 26, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book (Square One Writer's Guide) (Paperback)
I'll begin my review of this book with a confession of my personal bias. Rudy Shur was my mentor. When I had a vague idea of a book I wanted to write, I sent a proposal to him, and he got back to me in 3 days. Even though he was the busy CEO of health publishing leader Avery Press, he spent very literally hundreds of hours helping me over two years, mostly evenings and weekends, by email and phone. With consummate patience he taught me how to define my audience, empathize with my readers, and distinguish my book from the competition. He gave me an editor who made every sentence clear, and then a designer who made my words fit the page. But the most important thing the author of this book taught me was how to write a book with a picture of every page in my mind as I composed it. I have since written (and sold) six more books, and it's largely due to Rudy Shur that I can live comfortably and do what I love to do.
What you will find in this book is a step-by-step, practical approach to placing your book. This book contains comprehensive sections on finding the right place for your book, understanding the economics of your book and treating your potential publisher like a human being, and making your deal. As an author who's written enough books to have more than a few things go wrong, I can only say that every contingency I've experienced or heard of is covered in this book. For writers who have limited time to read, the book is laid out to include summaries of key points:
Questions about where your book fits in: Hardback? Soft cover? Trade? Mass market? Which publisher.
A section that could have been titled "Ten Kisses of Death for a Submission Package"
Warning signs of a contract that won't work
and
a checklist to make doubly sure that the publisher to whom you are entrusting years of your life is the right publisher for you, as well as many others.
The book also presents the Square One system, which is the publisher's view of what made over 1,000 sucessful books successful.
If you want a step-by-step, comprehensive, encouraging guide to getting published, you just can't do better that How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book. No first-time author should be without it.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an absolute requirement for a non-fiction writer, May 12, 2001
This review is from: How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book (Square One Writer's Guide) (Paperback)
Granted I went about things the unusual way to get my two non-fiction books published (was lucky enough to find a great agent), but I wanted to see how things were supposed to work. I'm happy to report that the author knows what he's talking about! My agent taught me much of what he writes, but if you don't have an agent (or don't need one), this is the fastest and most painless way to figure out how to avoid the "slush" pile(where most unsolicited manuscripts go). He provides the format for the 5-6 pages of material you need to send (do NOT send the whole book) and explains the most common mistakes that just about anyone would make if they didn't read this kind of book first. Extremely useful, well laid out and easy to follow.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get this book if you want to get published!, July 5, 2001
This review is from: How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book (Square One Writer's Guide) (Paperback)
This is the best author's guide to getting published that I've seen in nearly 30 years in the business. It's well written, reader-friendly, entertaining, informative and gives you easy-to-follow steps on getting published. What more could you want in one book?
Exceptionally pragmatic guidelines are cleverly presented in nifty features such as 8 Basic Rules, 8 Steps to submission, and 10 Common submission errors. You also get some very practical sample cover letters and tons of helpful hints in the margins. You'll no doubt find the glossary of publishing jargon and the resource directory to be very helpful as well. The "SquareOne" book classification system is a remarkably clear and simple guide to the taxonomy of nonfiction books. Essential knowledge for getting publishers to understand, and accept, your work; it should be read before you actually begin to write.
I'm particularly impressed with Shur's chapter 7:The Deal (on the publishing contract) and chapter 8:When It Doesn't Happen (on what to do when you don't get a contract).
This extremely valuable how-to author's guide is so complete as to be just as useful to published authors as well as first-time writers. And, thanks to Shur's motivating encouragement to would-be authors, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever said "someday, I'm gonna write a book."
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