The Writer's Guide to the Business of Comics

Rating:
Summary: It does what it says
Review: Books about the technique of writing (plot, character, etc.) are very easy to find. This is not one of those kinds of books. This book is about the BUSINESS OF COMIC BOOKS.

As the author says, "This book is not designed to instruct you on how to develop your writing talents. Instead, I offer business advice and suggestions for honing those skills. I propose ways for you to find out where your abilities stand in relation to industry requirements...."

The author does an excellent job of telling you what to do AFTER you're fairly confident in your writing abilities. How should you format your proposals and scripts? Who should you approach at comic conventions, and how can you impress them? Should you send out unsolicited manuscripts? If you have writing skills, and the desire to write for comics, but don't know how to go about doing it for a living, then this is the book for you!

By the way, if you want a book on developing your writing talents, you'll get a lot more out of "The DC Guide to Writing Comics" by Denny O'Neil.

Rating:
Summary: It does what it says
Review: Books about the technique of writing (plot, character, etc.) are very easy to find. This is not one of those kinds of books. This book is about the BUSINESS OF COMIC BOOKS.

As the author says, "This book is not designed to instruct you on how to develop your writing talents. Instead, I offer business advice and suggestions for honing those skills. I propose ways for you to find out where your abilities stand in relation to industry requirements...."

The author does an excellent job of telling you what to do AFTER you're fairly confident in your writing abilities. How should you format your proposals and scripts? Who should you approach at comic conventions, and how can you impress them? Should you send out unsolicited manuscripts? If you have writing skills, and the desire to write for comics, but don't know how to go about doing it for a living, then this is the book for you!

By the way, if you want a book on developing your writing talents, you'll get a lot more out of "The DC Guide to Writing Comics" by Denny O'Neil.

Rating:
Summary: If you are looking for a job...
Review: If you want to look for a job it may be useful for you because some advise may be applied to some different cases. If you want to know what you may face when trying to look for a job in the comic business, then this is for you. If you want to know some basics about how to present your samples and some basics about script structure, this may be for you.

If you are out of USA and you want to get into comic business that may not be for you. If you are looking for a manual that tells you extensively all the secrets, hints and tips to write a good plot and a good script, then look somewhere else. It has some of that but it is not very long.

Basically this book is just some advise combined with some text boxes with Q&A interviews to some writers who work in that industry. It is not easy to get into this business considering that you have not the visual advantage of the artist and your work requires some concentration to evaluate if your job is good enough or not.

The author insists too much in some ideas like "do not hang around" when meeting or trying to contact editors.

If you are a newcomer writer without experience, I suggest 1)Work on your self-esteem first 2)Read this book and do not feel overwhelmed by this book 3)Do whatever you judge as what must be done. This is for you.

If you are not a newcomer writer without experience, I suggest you look for something else.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't really help much
Review: It's well put together, but if you are in fact trying to break into the business, she basically says that you have to know someone, be it an editor or an artist, and that's notparticularly helpful, IMHO.

Rating:
Summary: A very good place to start!
Review: This is an easy read and gives information only a true insider would know.