If you look on my Goodreads account, you will see that I gave The Forest for the Trees a two star review. I gave it so because I felt it did not deliver what was promised. However, this book is still good in some sense, and I recommend that indie writers (particularly fiction writers) read this. The Forest for the Trees gives insight to the publishing world from the perspective of an editor, but it is crammed full of anecdotes of literary uppity-ups and how they were full of themselves in this way or that. The examples of the publishing industry are few and far between. However, the examples and stories about how the publishing industry works is invaluable. For that alone, I recommend reading this. One example is that (at least when the author of this book was an editor) there was no market research done on the artwork for book covers. It consisted of the artist going around the office and asking his/her coworkers of their opinions. And author agreement (getting the autho
This is a must read if you have never studied fiction. While the text is dry (it was written many decades ago and serves as a textbook in many creative fiction courses), it is invaluable. Firstly, it lays out fiction wonderfully. Swain has a treasure trove of do's and don'ts lined up in all areas, be it character, setting, or the middle of the story. Be prepared to highlight. I never ever ever mark in my books. Ever. It's the 8th Deadly Sin. But still I found myself thinking "Hey I need to mark this." This is great for indie authors who are just setting out or those who are experienced and want to improve their craft. I find myself referencing it even when I'm not writing. I literally (sorry for word choice, but it's true) cannot go into how much value this book is on your bookshelf. It's almost entirely made up of information, as opposed to other books that promise that simply retell their experiences and market it as "expe
When I first did my research on writing, I saw an offhand comment on having to read a lot. Well, my research was not so much on writing as it was on the industry of writing, or how to nab an agent or get a nice fat royalty check every week from your New York Times bestseller. The article said to read a lot in the area you wish to write in. Me being young and naive, I thought this was a sort of sales gimmick. You want to write as a [insert genre] author? You wanna write in the big leagues? You can! Just...buy all my books, buy my imprint's books, and buy all the genre's books. It's important to support one another as authors, after all. Like I said, I was naive. As far as the money aspect goes, I had forgotten about this wonderful, magical place called the public library where you can borrow any one of a thousand books for free based off of nothing but the trustworthiness of your word. In the age of the Internet, these libraries have banded together to o
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