A Writer's Guide to Book Publishing: Second Revised Edition

by Richard Balkin

Book Overview

Packed with useful, practical advice from a successful literary agent, this is the essential guide to how to get a book published--and then marketed well. The entire process is covered as well as new... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452270219
• ISBN13: 9780452270213
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for people wanting to work in book publishing and retailing

Richard Balkin does a fantastic job of describing how the publishing industry functions (and often doesn't function well). In my own book, Book Marketing DeMystified: Enjoy Discovering the Optimal Way to Sell Your Self-Published Book, Practical advice from the inventor of print-on-demand (POD) publishing, I quote this passage from Richard's book in this manner: As a new publisher or self-publishing author, you'll often be substituting creativity and personal connections for the brute-force, expensive strategies employed by the large publishing houses. Here's a rather blunt assessment of conventional book marketing by Richard Balkin: "Of all the major industries in the United States, surely book publishing is the most primitive, the most disorganized, and the most haphazard. Consider the following: What other industry would launch a national campaign for an untested product whose lifespan is usually less than a year and whose chances of recouping its investment are worse than one in three? What other industry would manufacture so many competing products with only the barest notion of which of them might succeed in the marketplace? What other industry would sink a hefty percentage of its capital into a variety of mechanisms designed to stimulate sales, knowing full well that the most effective method - that elusive 'word of mouth' - is totally beyond its control? In many ways, a publisher acts like a Hopi shaman praying for rain: They both execute a number of rituals designed to convince themselves and their followers that they can control uncontrollable events, and then go home and cross their fingers. If rain doesn't fall, they blame themselves or their acolytes for not adequately performing some of the rituals, thereby angering the gods and spoiling the magic. 'Go out and get some really smooth stones this time,' they say, 'and let's try again.' [from Richard Balkin, A Writer's Guide to Book Publishing, pp 199-200, Plume Publishers, 1994, isbn 0452270219] That sounds pretty gloomy and Richard didn't even touch on the financially-suicidal practice of selling books on 'returnable' terms. But, hey, don't get too discouraged by Richard's assessment. He was writing about the conventional book industry, not what indie authors are now accomplishing. [His book does have excellent information about the industry -- BUY IT TO LEARN!] Remember: with a little knowledge and clever choices in your 14 P marketing mix, you can be more cost-effective at selling your book than the industry pros. You'll create a world of possibilities so you won't need those really smooth stones.

A GREAT book about the book business, not about how to write

Why write it if no one will read it??? This is an absolutely essential book for anyone that wants to write a book and get it published. This is not a how-to on writing, but rather great practical advice and a road map for the process of getting a book to print. A MUST if you are serious about learning the business of the book business.