Drawing heavily on his own writing experience and output, Harry Edward Neal presents a how-to-book that is basically for beginning writers. He suggests fields in which to obtain writing experience; how to find ideas -- everywhere; guides in making an outline and sample chapters (the writer's sales pitch); how to select and approach a publisher. He covers research aids, the interview -- how to get it and how to get it down, style and revision, the use of fiction techniques in non-fiction, the obtaining of illustrations. The facts of contracts and copyrights and the role of the agent in a writer's life also come under consideration. Strongest in its coverage of methods of obtaining and organizing ideas and information, this is help from an old hand--but it lacks the finesse and firm sense of the profession that characterized Paul Reynolds' The Writing and Selling of Non-Fiction (p. 692, 1963).