A well-organized, brief synopsis of publishing basics, and handy to keep on an e-reader.
This short guide covers the nuts and bolts of getting a book published, whether by a publisher or on your own.
Markwith and Olivier (Father’s Secret, 2012) have compiled the basic information needed to publish a book. Most of the information contained in this guide can be found on the web for free, and in some cases, the free versions are more comprehensive. But some of the resources are not so easily found on the many various publishing blogs and writers’ sites, such as the suggestions regarding the Library of Congress and its Preassigned Control Number program. Information about how distributors factor into the publishing process is also helpful, as is data regarding costs. The sample questionnaire for reviewers reading a manuscript draft is an excellent feature. Some subjects get too little coverage. There’s not enough background about International Standard Book Numbers (the unique, 13-digit identifiers for books) and copyrights, and the discussion of publishers’ views on unsolicited manuscripts is confusing. Highlighting the importance of grammar and spelling is a worthwhile addition, underscored by the grammatical and spelling errors found throughout this guide. Although the guide is generally accurate, there are missed opportunities to provide readers with a more direct route to resources. The Bowker.com site does include a link to purchase an ISBN, but the better option might be to visit ISBN.org, which explains more about ISBNs and barcodes, and contains other resources worth reviewing prior to purchasing an ISBN.
A well-organized, brief synopsis of publishing basics, and handy to keep on an e-reader.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 25
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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