Customer Reviews

Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents: Who They Are! What They Want! and How to Win Them Over! (13th Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm an editor (prefer to remain anonymous) who found my name as well as the names of my colleagues listed as working for publishing houses we left years ago. (I left my old house in 1998!) Stick to the professional directories or at least always call to confirm staff names.

raspberries for the latest cut and paste of Jeff Herman's annual rehash of representatives for starving authors.

People, I've written 12 books, and some of them were sold by agents and some weren't. I literally made 20 times as much money when I dealt with the publisher myself. Get to know your potential publishers as human beings. Treat them like human beings. Write a great book, and you'll succeed.

But an agent (and I'm not talking about Jeff Herman) can use your manuscript as a bargaining chip to get a better deal for another author. You can do the footwork for a groundbreaking book and your agent can sell a competing title by a better known author, blanking you out of all your hard work. And an agent can make an off the cuff comment that ends your career. Believe me, they can, and most don't care if they do. You exist for them to get commissions. That's pretty much an agent's view of you, with very, very rare exceptions.

There is one thing this overpriced and oversized tome is good for. If you find a sarcastic comment about writers listed as a quote from an agent, be very sure not to hire them! But if you just have to read a book as your security blanket, save your money and go with another guide like Rudy Shur's Square One guide for authors. It's vastly better.

Sure, the information in this book is current if your potential agent is doing a life term in Sing Sing. But of the five queries I sent out based on the information in this book, two were just unanswered and three came back addressee unknown. Maybe I picked the only five bad addresses in the book, or maybe current it isn't.

The contempt the author has for writers and the contempt so many of the agents have for writers is the real theme of this book. If you want names and addresses, use the internet. If you want a book that can actually help you get published, read The Square Guide to Publishing Your Non-fiction Book by Rudy Shur.

This is the Bible of Writer's Guides to Book Editors, Publishers, and Agents. I've reviewed several other guides and many of them are both good and useful, but this one is different. If you only purchase one writer's guide to publishers this is the one that you will want. It not only provides the publisher's name, address, and phone number, but who should be contacted for each particular type of submission, the type of submissions they are looking for, and examples of items they have published in the past. For agents it includes their address and phone number as well as their educational background, career history, hobbies and other profile information. Thoroughly researched and well documented, it is the best book you can purchase if you are a new writer seeking to get published or an experienced writer seeking to change agents or publishers.

...people do get published using market guides like this one. I am a published author of seven books (my last book is in its third printing now) and I have used this book and writer's market to get my queries in front of the right editors for my topic. Writer's Market has more listings, Jeff Herman's has more detail. If you can't afford a $...subscription to Literary Marketplace on line, this and Writer's Market are the books you need. I personally use both because each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

This book really sucked! Save your money! The I have tried to contact Mr. Herman about some of the problems I have encountered with the contact addresses he provided. He has yet to respond, meanwhile, I have wasted valuable postage for addresses that are incorrect or not in existance. One other note, many of the persons contacted were not accepting new talent, and hadn't been for quite sometime.

and when didn't buy a new edition and I got out from behind my computer and started making cold calls, I got published. I know the pain of writing for so very long with no recognition. All I can say is that maybe this book can make you feel better temporarily, thinking you have some kind of inside track that nobody else has (LOL), but the only way to get published is to make your own inside track. This book won't help you do it.

The addresses and phone numbers in this book are handy, but this is not the way to find an agent or publisher. Instead, visit the largest bookstore in your area and take a look at the books they sell that are in your genre. Look in the "Acknowledgments" section of each book and you are almost certain to find the names of the author's agent and the book's editor. Those are the agents and editors who are most likely to know about your subject and its chances of being published. Find those people using an online white pages or yellow pages site (anywho.com, dogpile.com, etc.) and give them a call. If they are receptive to your idea, send them a formal proposal.
I have to agree with those who have suggested that publication of a book like this by someone in the business smacks of exploitation. As one other reviewer noted, the author is an agent - call him up and see how receptive he is to you. You might as well try looking for Elvis in the supermarket.

I agree with the reviews in previous editions of this work that books such as these are merely works of exploitation preying on eternally hopeful would-be writers and dangling false hopes before them.

With its already out-of-date information (the book has been out for over 6 months), the attempt to represent the book's currency for the years 2003-2004, as printed on the book's cover, is laughable as well as being highly misleading and deceptive.

If you must have such a directory, the latest edition of Writer's Market is the one to have.