Customer Reviews

You Can Write for Magazines (You Can Write It!)

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I finished a short book titled You Can Write For Magazines by Greg Daugherty. It is 124 pages of practical advice on how to turn your writing efforts into salable material for magazines. The book covers how to create ideas, how to write effective query letters to editors to sell those ideas, how manuscripts should be formatted, and so much more. When you get done with this book, you'll have an idea of what you need to do in order to start your career as a part-time freelance writer. If you've been writing already for publications or if you've read other books on this subject, you might not find an abundance of new material here. But the information you will find is concise and readable, so it's worth reviewing it again...

Greg Daugherty was the managing editor of Success magazine when I wrote a time-management column for the magazine, so I can speak from experience when I say that he's a talented writer and an expert who knows the magazine industry from the inside out.

With more than 20 years experience in the magazine business, he knows what works. In his book, YOU CAN WRITE FOR MAGAZINES, he shares his knowledge in an informative, inspiring, and entertaining way.

Over the years I've followed the principles that Greg details in his book and I can attest to how practical and useful they are. I've had more than 200 articles published in a wide variety of publications. It's quite a "high" to go into a store, look at the magazine rack, and know that you have articles in three national magazines that month.

The ingredients for success are in Greg's book--first how to get great ideas, then write winning articles (leads, middles, and endings), quizzes, compelling interviews, eye-catching sidebars (13 kinds), query letters that work, and finally prepare your manuscript and sell it--all you need to do is to add your own special brand of creativity and some perseverance.
-- Kathleen Hawkins, president of winningspirit.com and author of Spirit Incorporated: How to Follow Your Spiritual Path from 9 to 5

When I first received this how-to book, I thought it didn't look like much. At 124 pages, it was quite a bit smaller then my other writing manuals and reference books. Then I started reading it. I found that on every page of "You Can Write For Magazines", Author Greg Daugherty, has filled them with invaluable advice, ideas, and the dos and don'ts of either breaking into the freelance business, or improving your odds of getting the Editors to consider your ideas for publication.

Having been on both sides of the coin, editor and writer,he is able to let the writers know just what those editors look for(providing you didn't catch them in a bad mood), and he completely understands the writers points of views and feelings, from the dawn of the idea, to the acceptance or rejection. I also liked that this how-to book, was in no way a dry read. Daugherty keeps every page interesting and injects his own brand of humor as well. I read it from cover to cover, but I know I will be returning to it for help in the future.

The book covers it all. You'll learn what goes on behind the scenes in the magazine world, the best techniques for selling your ideas, writing a good query letter to get the attention of the editor(here I would've liked an illustrated example of a query letter for those getting started), brief manuscript mechanics,best way to prepare and conduct interviews, and how to deal with rejection. There are chapters that go into specific types of writing. For example,how to write 'how-to' articles, writing about famous people, writing one of those Quizzes so many magazines have,writing from personal experience and many more ideas even including review work(naturally this was a chapter I found most interesting).One bit of advice here, was to make a light pencil mark, next to notable pages in a book you are to review. If I had done that with this book for review, I would have marked up the entire book, and gone over my word allotment here as well.

Other advice covers, money matters, contracts, your rights, magazine terminology,finding time,other reference books that may be of great help, and what to do after that great day arrives and you are PUBLISHED!This book answers all questions for both fiction and nonfiction, the newbie,and gives solid advice and a fresh outlook on things for those that have been at it for a while.

In Chapter 20, 'The Writer's Reference Shelf',Daugherty, lists 7 essential books for every writer. A Dictionary, a Thesaurus, A Style book(he gives recommendations),Book of Quotations, Encyclopedia(found on most computers these days),an Almanac and an Atlas. I would have to disagree and say there are 8(where magazine writer's are concerned). To that list I would add "You Can Write For Magazines" by Greg Daugherty.

For fun and to impress your writing buddies check out:
Wordsmanship: A Dictionary

Thanks Mr. Daugherty for all the help. I'm already putting some of it to good use.
It's a Keeper....Laurie

also recommended:
On Writing

Although this book can be helpful for beginning writers, it lacks in additional information. I have been reading several other books on magazine and freelance writing and many of them have the same information as this one. This book only gives basic information that the everyday writer can apply as common sense. What I could really use is a list of internet sources and websites or even useful names and addresses for resources on more information. This book doesn't provide any of that. However, I will keep it in my library of quick reference books to keep me positive and motivated when I suddenly feel the need to "give up".

I am Greg Daugherty's son, Jeff Daugherty, and I'd just like to say that it is the best book ever written even though I have never read it in my entire life.

And by the way, for those of you who say he used to be an editor, he is still an editor for Consumer Reports.