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
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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