Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents 2005: Who They Are! What They Want! How to Win Them Over!

Rating:
Summary: Double-Check EVERYTHING You Read In This Book!
Review: Before you accept any information in this book at face value, double-check it with another source (preditorsandeditors is a great source). Some of the agents in this book are scam artists. The fact that the author (who, as another reviewer pointed out, comes across as smug and obnoxious), either didn't know who he was recommending, or didn't care, should be enough to steer people away from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Jeff is a genious
Review: I have given these books out as presents. Every potential author needs this book. It should be considered the publishing bible.
Rick Frishman author "Guerrilla Mareketing for Writers" and "Guerrilla Publicity". President of Planned TV Arts www.plannedtvarts.com and www.rickfrishman.com

Rating:
Summary: If you can only buy just one writers guide
Review: I have given these books out as presents. Every potential author needs this book. It should be considered the publishing bible.
Rick Frishman author "Guerrilla Mareketing for Writers" and "Guerrilla Publicity". President of Planned TV Arts www.plannedtvarts.com and www.rickfrishman.com

Rating:
Summary: Wrong information
Review: I haven't picked this book up, but just from the inside the book search, at least some of the information isn't correct. My former boss is still listed in this 2004 edition, even though he left the company in 2002, ditto with a couple of the other contacts. Be sure to check your information when you send queries out. I get at least 40 a month, and each one gets only a glance. Don't make it easy to throw your proposal away if right away you don't know what kind of books we publish or who the right person is to contact. Selling a book is like a job interview, imagine if you messed your interviewer's name up, would you honestly think you would get that job?

Rating:
Summary: Inaccuracies
Review: I haven't read this book, so this isn't a review as such - just a point of fact. I discover I am cited on page 53 as having written 'the supernatural thriller' Death in the Family. This could simply be a copy-editing problem, but there is nothing even faintly supernatural about Death in the Family or any of my other books, so this seems to add weight to the above comments about inaccuracies.

Rating:
Summary: If you can only buy just one writers guide
Review: If you can only afford to buy one writer's guideline manual skip this book. It's okay but Herman's smug attitude will get on your nerves very quickly and I was extremely unsatisfied with the section on agents. Unless you want to use this as a supplement to Writer's Market I'd say leave this rather expensive dud in the store.

Rating:
Summary: Beg, borrow or steal
Review: If you cannot afford a latest edition, even the previous incarnation, 2003, 2004, still has much useful info.

I am just hoping that people will give this as gift to inspire all those authors (just born or lost hope of being in print).

Thank you Jeff for the good work. I failed to find your email address to inquire matters professional.



Rating:
Summary: listen to your heart
Review: Send in your query or your three chapters to fifty of these guys and then wait. First, they don't want to read them. They hire someone to do this task. They don't want to do it either. They send you their rejection card and don't even acknowledge the title of your book. Once they did. Now they're too many of you. They do get shills to write good things about their own published book because they want the expectant writer to buy it. That's how they make money. You must have a contact with a publisher or an agent or they won't touch your stuff. Even Hemingway was going nowhere until Scott Fitzgarald reccommended him. Enough though of opinion. Ask anyone that you know who is an aspiring writer if they ever got a positive response from an agent. Michael Blake "Dances With Wolves" never got an agent until Costner said he was going to make the movie. Even then it was like pulling rotting teeth. The publishers sent regection after rejection until Blake sold it for $5,000 (to be published in paperback)with a $1,000 bonus if the picture was actually released. He had given up writing after 35 years when "Dances" sold. But who did he have to know...Kevin Costner of all people. Another agent, not Blake's, said he had only taken one client on in one year and only because the guy sent him a bottle of French wine. He liked French wine. Go to the agent. (How badly do you want to be published?) Talk to the agent. Find out if they are even in the neighborhood of what it is that you're writing. Call publishers. Talk to their assistants. They'll talk to you if you keep it short. Find out what they really want. Go to the library or the internet but don't encourage these "Write and be published authors." They are conning you. None of these agents have the slightest intention of reading your chapters. Anyway, one way or the other you will find out. Don't use someone else unless you have an "in;" be your own agent. Good luck you writers. Some of you are great and are anguished over nothing. You will succeed. Do it yourself and don't forget foreign publishers that publish in English. They will read your stuff. For heaven's sake's don't just sit there! Good hunting!

Rating:
Summary: Buying this book and its predecessors changed my life
Review: This book - and its predecessor editions - literally changed my life. No more sitting on slush piles, unread by junior executives in publishing houses! I am now a published author with a great literary agent - and all this is thanks to reading Herman's book. As he says, and as I can say more easily on his behalf, this really does knock the daylights out of Writer's Digest. If you want to get a book published, read, buy, mark and inwardly digest everything that Herman says - and good luck to you thereafter! Christopher Catherwood, author of the bestselling CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ, published in 2004 thanks entirely to the agent I found in previous editions of this book.

Rating:
Summary: So-So
Review: This book is fair. He is a little to negative for my taste, and his contempt for writers seems to come through a litte to much. Also, there are agents listed in his book that are known scams and con-artists, so he does not do that much research. If you want to find a good literary agent or publisher, go to the website "Preditors and Editors", and you find out all you need to know for free.