The Book Bible
How to Sell Your Manuscript—No Matter What Genre—Without Going Broke or Insane
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A Brilliant, Buoyant Guide to Publishing Your Book
Hundreds of thousands of books come out every year worldwide. So why not yours? In The Book Bible, New York Times bestseller and wildly popular Manhattan writing professor Susan Shapiro reveals the best and fastest ways to break into a mainstream publishing house. Unlike most writing manuals that stick to only one genre, Shapiro maps out the rules of all the sought-after, sellable categories: novels, memoirs, biography, how-to, essay collections, anthologies, humor, mystery, crime, poetry, picture books, young adult and middle grade, fiction and nonfiction. Shapiro once worried that selling 16 books in varied sub-sections made her a literary dabbler. Yet after helping her students publish many award-winning bestsellers on all shelves of the bookstore, she realized that her versatility had a huge upside. She could explain, from personal experience, the differences in making each kind of book, as well as ways to find the right genre for every project and how to craft a winning proposal or great cover letter to get a top agent and book editor to say yes.
This valuable guide will teach both new and experienced scribes how to attain their dream of becoming a successful author.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shapiro (The Forgiveness Tour) offers a soup-to-nuts survey of how to get published in this accessible assemblage of publishing principles. All are animated by the notion that those who want to land a book deal "have to be hungry, determined, and desperate enough." For scribes who meet those prerequisites, Shapiro lays out the basics, organizing her program by the type of book—nonfiction, poetry, fiction, children's books—and keeping her tongue firmly in cheek. Each section begins with a list of what not to do ("Refuse to Read Similar Books: Write in a total vacuum"; "Expect immediate success") and is loaded with practical guidance, as in a section on querying agents in which readers are advised to give a description of their project in "two lines, not twenty." Shapiro's track record, which includes published works about her struggles with addiction, and coauthoring a memoir with a Bosnian refugee, lends plenty of authority to her advice. Even if there's some repetition, as when she repeatedly reminds that though Facebook and LinkedIn are regarded as passé by younger writers, many in the book industry still rely on them, Shapiro succeeds in dishing out hard-earned wisdom with plenty of verve. Would-be authors, take note.
