Customer Reviews

Putting Your Passion Into Print: Get Your Book Published Successfully! (Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a terrific book. It's practical, it's fun to read, and it totally demystifies the publishing process. Want to know where you can find an agent? How to write a book proposal that will make publishers sit up and notice? What pitfalls to avoid? This is the book for you.

One of the writers is an experienced literary agent; both are previously published authors. They know the process inside and out. Then, just to go one better, they asked all the other authors, agents, book editors, and publicists they know to share their success stories and inside tips.

The result is inspirational and encouraging, entertaining and informative. Whether you are just setting out to write a book, or already have several published books under your belt, you will find this an invaluable resource. There is no doubt in my mind that it will become a standard of the industry, sitting right alongside "Writer's Market" and "The Chicago Manual of Style." (And let me tell of you-it's a much better read than either of those books could ever dream of being!)

Looks like the consensus is strong. This book is far and away the best book for authors about getting published and marketing yourself that I've read, and I've read about eight. I was clueless when I first got published and made so many mistakes. Things will be different (and fun) when my second book comes out, and it's all because of "Putting Your Passion Into Print." This book will more than pay for itself in book sales and the amount of time it saves in the effort to get published.

This book is full of info for almost every aspect of publishing and finding a literary agent. It covers more subjects than any other book I read, but it could go into a little more detail with some of them.If the chapter on proposals and query letters had more examples, it would have been a little more helpful. Their was a lot of information on marketing and publicity. I'm overall very pleased with this book, I learned enough in it to consider it a good purchase, and it will be another one I refer to often.

It is an important part of a writer's personal collection. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get published along with Michael Larsen's "How to Get a Literary Agent", and "Give em What they Want" by Blythe Cameson for good examples of query letters.

These three books are a good start for the fiction writer.

I'm currently writing my first book and so I picked up "Putting Your Passion Into Print" to investigate the possibilities for publishing it. What a shock! After having read it, I no longer have any real desire to publish my book. What I got out of "Putting Your Passion Into Print" is that you, the author, are responsible for everything. Forget about writing! You'll be too busy with a thousand other petty things. And don't expect any help from your publisher.

This book really tells it like it is! Publishing is a cut-throat business, and if you want your book to be successful, you've got to be a tough businessman, a marketing whiz and an executive secretary all rolled into one.

I got the impression from reading this very detailed book--and, believe me, the authors leave no stone unturned--that it is aimed more at people who are looking to make a bundle by writing bestsellers. Idealistic people like me, who are simply slaving away out of "Passion" because they want to share something important with humanity and posterity, should go another route.

Highly recommended for daydreaming, want-to-be authors, if only to scare the hell out them. Thank you so much, Arielle and David, for opening my eyes!

(The book probably deserves 5 stars, but I gave it 4 because after reading through 300 pages of the traditional way of doing things, I was so much looking forward to an equally detailed treatment of "Self-Publishing," which was disappointing in its brevity and repetition of things already said in the previous chapters.)

My brother and I have been working on our first book (Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations) for over a year now -- it goes to print this week -- and PYPIP has been a constant reference and priceless guide. From agents and proposals to writing, editing, publicity, and marketing, this book takes you through the whole process with practical advice and examples that bring the ideas to life. Whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction, cookbooks or poetry, PYPIP is the book for you. I would recommend this book to any aspiring writer. It's worth its weight in gold.

Most aspiring writers go through at least a couple of books about how to write, how to find an agent, how to get published, and, if they're astute, how to stay that way. I hadn't run across any great, friendly texts that encapsulate the whole process, and I always wanted to have one.

Enter Arielle and David. This star-crossed couple combined their vast knowledge of the industry, both from the side of the aspiring author and the working agent, and developed a handbook that any writer ought to have in their collection, no matter what the level of experience. This is a book that I will continue to reference over the course of my career, as well as enjoying the lively prose and the well-organized structure. This is one of those wonderful books where the table of contents alone is incredibly witty. The combined talents of Sterry and Eckstut, both gifted and ground-breaking writers and veterans of showbiz give all of us who want to not just write, but get published, and hopefully paid for it, a text that is both fun and intensely useful.

I started with nothing but an idea, and then I bought this book. Soon I had an A-list agent, a near six-figure advance, and multiple TV deals in the works. Buy it and memorize it. This little tome is the quiet secret of rockstar authors.

Timothy Ferriss
First-time author
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
(Random House/Crown Publishing)

I got an agent and a publisher for my book within 3 weeks of submitting the proposal - and not a single rejection letter! When would-be authors ask me for advice I send them to the store to buy Putting Your Passion Into Print! Bravo to the authors for a comprehsive guide to writing, publishing and marketing your book. Also helpful was "Write the Perfect Book Proposal" by Jeff Herman. These two books should be on every aspiring author's shelf. Scratch that. They should be on your bedside table....and in your hands.

Donna Cutting
Author of "The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red-Carpet Customer Service"The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service

"Putting Your Passion into Print" isn't a bad book, it just could have been done much better, or at least they could have spent more time on substance and less time on making it bright, flashy, and distracting. Fortunately, others have done this genre better, so a revision might not be in order. Specifically, the text wanders from topic to topic, offering disconnected tidbits as "rules" for getting yourself published. If you are looking for a book of lists of things to do, this book is stuffed with lists and should cater to most of your insecurities. But, if you are looking for a thoughtful reflection on how to design a proposal that fits your book, consider Richard Curtis's "How to Be your Own Literary Agent" or Eric Maisel's "The Art of the Book Proposal."

Clearly, writing is hard work. Publishing is even more so. Putting Your Passion into Print is one of many "how to" books about writing, but this one is gut-wrenchingly honest. Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry tell it like it is. They are a not sideline cheerleader, that's for sure. Anybody thinking about writing a book and wanting to come out on top should take a look at this one!