Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58278 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Freelance journalists come together to offer advice on their solitary business in this handbook for working, and aspiring, writers. Each of the 26 chapters is penned by a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and their subjects range from how to stock a home office and how to hire an assistant to how to brainstorm new ideas. Lisa Collier Cool's essay on writing a successful magazine query brims with smart suggestions, as does Richard A. Marini's contribution on contracts and protecting your rights as a writer. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is its appendix, which shares "Tips From the Pros." Here's where Sondra Forsyth recommends, "Always finish a story two days before your deadline," and where Greg Daugherty counsels, "Aim high. Try the best-paying, most prestigious markets first. You may find, as I have, that you're rejected less often and simply treated better." Though the great variety of voices sometimes makes for abrupt transitions and small contradictions, this advice-filled book successfully provides an enlightening guide to the field.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Here's a writers' guide that concentrates on an aspect too many similar volumes put to one side. Writing, the book's contributors (professional writers all) say, is a business. And freelance writers, especially, need to understand this most basic fact. Unlike so many how-to-write books, aimed at creative writers or journalists with steady jobs, this one is targeted at freelancers who earn their income from aggressively seeking out assignments, who write for newspapers and magazines and corporate publications all at the same time, on a variety of subjects. The book covers the essentials: setting up a home office, writing a query, conducting research, finding story ideas, etc. The contributors illustrate their points with stories drawn from their own writing lives, demonstrating that it is, indeed, possible to make a decent living as a freelancer--if you're willing to write as much as you can, and if you remember that you are in business and a business exists to make a profit. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Chapter by chapter, the working writers who wrote this book share the concrete details of the writing life....What you read in these pages is what you would hear working writers talk about over coffee or cocktails."
--Samuel G. Freedman, prize-winning author and associate dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, from the Foreword

Customer Reviews

Indispensable
If you are a freelance journalist/writer, this book is a must have. The writing and advice is top-notch.

A must have for your library.

Useful collection of essays for the freelance writer
Instead of just setting down a list of dos and don'ts, the ASJA guide presents a series of how-to essays by published authors that include how to work through the different aspects and challenges of freelance writing. This format allows for experience to provide guidance. I like to read about success stories and examples of what worked and what didn't work. I have used it many times to figure out different aspects of our freelance writing business.

Learn from Expert Nonfiction Writers
If you take the information in this book and study each chapter, it's like going to a high quality professional writers conference. You can learn about a variety of areas of nonfiction writing from veteran much-published writers.

If you can only get one how-to book on nonfiction writing, get this one.