Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74846 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-11
• Released on: 2008-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1000 pages

Review

About the Author

Customer Reviews

This is the Writer's Bible
First of all, let me start by saying I was a little intimidated by the sheer size of this book. At 1,075 pages, it resembled the Cliff Notes for War and Peace. But being the voracious reader that I am, I looked at it in a positive light. I was definitely going to get my money's worth. You've heard the old saying, `You get what you pay for?' Well, I got a wealth of indispensable information.

This book is a must have for any author or aspiring writer hoping and dreaming to one day, become published. I initially purchased this book to get a list of agents who might be interested in representing a romance novel I'd recently written (which by the way, in my opinion, is the greatest romance ever written, but I haven't been able to convince anyone else of this fact, except my mother and my husband. And they don't count, because by default, they're obligated to tell me wonderful things about myself).

But Jeff's book was so much more than just a simple listing of agents. Not only does it contain a detailed summary of each editor, agent and publishing house ever known to human-kind, it also provides personal information, hobbies and recent book sales on the aforementioned parties. I appreciated the depth of the research involved in this endeavor. After two years of desperately searching for an agent, I thought I'd harassed every one - but this book showed me that I had not yet exhausted all the possibilities.

In addition to background information on publishing houses, this book provides the following:

* Instructions on how to approach/write/query/contact agents and editors
* A sample contract between an author and an agency
* The publishing process and how a book ends up - well, published
* A day in the life of a literary agent
* Advice for dealing with editors and agents
* Definitions of book genres and the future of publishing
* How to market yourself as a writer
* A list of writing groups/critique groups to help refine your manuscript
* Information on self-publishing and e-publishing
* A detailed list of websites and other resources for writers

This book truly exceeded my expectations. I gained invaluable knowledge about writing and the publishing business in general that I believe has made me a better writer. In fact, I'm thinking of contacting Jeff and telling him to republish it with a different title - The Writer's Bible. Once you read it, you may just agree with me.

Incomplete and Poorly Organized
I don't want to slam this book too hard, since it's well-respected and many readers seem to find it useful. My only problem with Jeff Herman's Guide is that it is NOT A GUIDE. A guide to agents and publishers should LIST THEM BY GENRE. Instead, Herman's Guide lists them alphabetically, which only helps if you know which publisher or agent you're interested in.

But there's another problem with the book: MANY IMPORTANT AGENTS ARE NOT LISTED. Eric Simonoff, Nicole Aragi and Lisa Bankoff are not here. ICM and William Morris are nowhere to be found. In fact, of the fifteen agents I targeted, only two were listed here. This is because (as Herman explains on page 502), the book only lists agents and agencies who responded to a questionnaire he sent out.

So...if you know what agent you're interested in, and they happen to have replied to Herman's questionnaire you might find some good info here. There is also some good basic info in the back section about the business of writing.

But if you're looking for an agent to send your work to, this is not the place to start. Instead, I'd recommend the latest edition of the Writers Guide. (You can probably find both books at the library and save yourself some cash--I wish I'd done that before I ordered Herman's Guide.)

Finally, here are two suggestions for the next edition of Herman's Guide: (1) add an appendix listing agents and publishers by genre, (2) list all AAR agents, even if they don't reply to your questionnaire.

If you write romance, you won't find much here
This book lists tons of information about publisher, editors, and literary agents. However, if you write romance, and are looking for an agent, you won't find what you need. There are approximately 276 pages of literary agents in this book, and I found about sixteen agents that specifically list that they represent romance. Some say they represent commercial fiction and women's fiction, but they don't consider romance to fall in those genres, because when they list what the don't represent, they say NO romance. Also, for you sci-fi and fantasy writers, lots of these agents reject that as well.

That is the only real failing of the book that I can see. Herman has provided a wealth of information, it's just that for some writers in certain fields, the literary agents are going to be useless. You might be better served to see if you can find this at the library or order it through inter library loan before you buy it to make sure you can find agents that will represent your type of work. If you just skim through the listings and only look at what the agents represent, you should take about two hours to go through all the listings. However, make sure you find the 2009 version because the information in an earlier edition could be different.

Incidentally for romance authors, the Writer's Digest guide to literary agents is supposed to list more agents who represent romance authors.