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writing skills for print, radio, new media, and commerce

Style – ten lessons in clarity and grace

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how to refine your writing style

This is a twenty year old book already in its sixth edition, and the author admits that it’s still ‘evolving’, which is a good sign that serious thought is going into its composition. Style ten lessons in clarity and grace is based on a course Joseph Williams teaches at the University of Chicago. His approach is based on two principles – that ‘it’s good to write clearly, and anyone can’ – and the second part of the proposition is what he’s teaching here. His approach is to draw attention to the finer issues of clarity in prose, and to show how language can be used with subtelty to effect it.

Style ten lessons in clarity and grace His ten seperate chapters deal with each of these issues in turn, and his own prose style is engaging and friendly – which both proves his point and shows that he knows what he is talking about. He starts with a brief and amusing guide to bad prose and what creates it, and he ends with the most celebrated advice on creating effective prose – that good writing is about ‘rewriting’. His general advice is that improvement can be made – if you go slowly. So what then are his ten ‘lessons’?

  1. Write with readers in mind
  2. Write clearly
  3. Write concretely
  4. Write in an active mode
  5. Put the subject at start of sentence
  6. Put rhetoric at end of sentence
  7. Edit, edit, edit; and cut, cut, cut
  8. Get the verb in the main clause
  9. Create structure
  10. Write ethically

It’s pitched at a fairly sophisticated level, suitable for intermediate to advanced users. Williams assumes that readers know the basics of what is right and wrong, but want to improve in matters of clarity and elegance. He makes an interesting and useful distinction between three types of correctness – and offers different levels of response to them.

There are are exercises in each chapter with suggested answers, which I think makes this a text which might be more popular with tutors than with the students for whom it was presumably written. You’ve got to put up with a lot of grappling with ‘nominalizations’, ‘resumptive modifiers’, and elimination of the passive voice, as well as the same examples worked over and over until they’re right.

There’s a particularly good chapter on deleting redundant expressions, writing more concisely, and eliminating ‘metadiscourse’ [signposting or ‘writing about writing’]. He gives one example where a fifty word statement is edited down to a sentence of six. His advice includes one point I write on something like fifty percent of all student essays: ‘Put the subject at the start of the sentence, and follow it as soon as possible with the verb’.

Towards the end of the book he tries to ‘teach the unteachable’ – elegance and ‘good style’. This section requires quite a sophisticated level of literary experience, and strangely enough he ends on punctuation – but pitched at quite an advanced level.

This isn’t a book for beginners. It’s for people who want to improve their existing writing skills, who want to rid themselves of officialese and cloudy abstraction and garbled syntax so as to produce writing which is clear and efficient. If you follow his advice, read carefully what he’s got to say, and complete the exercises, I think you’ll find it money well spent.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Joseph Williams, Style: ten lessons in clarity and grace, New York: Addison Wesley, (6th edn) 1999, pp.309, ISBN: 0321024087

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Subediting for Journalists

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the art and skills of subediting for publication

The best thing about Subediting for Journalists is that it is quite clearly based on practical experience in professional journalism. There are some interesting accounts from newspaper and magazine journalists describing exactly how they work. It’s all to do with rigour and attention to detail. They deal with the basics of house style – adhering to a set of standards in spelling and representation. This means taking care with punctuation and grammar, spotting cliché, and getting names right.

Subediting for JournalistsMost of what they have to say concerns correcting common mistakes – dangling participles, misused phrases, and unnecessary repetition. Anyone who wants to improve their writing skills could learn valuable lessons here. They also cover all those grammatical niceties such as that/which and who/whom which you look up then forget about by the next time you need to use them. The advice they give could not be more up to date:

your publication …. could be printed, it could be uploaded onto a website, it could be cannibalised for delivery to WAP or G3 mobile phones and it could also appear on television.

There are plenty of examples of re-written news items which illustrate the advice being given. They deal neatly with issues of names, dates, places, accuracy, and getting to the point. There are sections on writing headlines and photograph captions. These need to be snappy, but the advice is the same in both cases – make it accurate.

They outline the main legal and ethical problems confronting subeditors – issues of copyright, libel, slander, defamation, and contempt of court.

They also explain the print production process. This includes the use of computer software such as Quark Publishing System (QPS) to control what can become a very complex collection of documents. It’s like a peek behind the scenes for the uninitiated.

There’s also a chapter on print technology which won’t tell you much about subediting, but which is a fascinating sketch of the revolution which took place in 1983 when hot metal was replaced by digital typesetting.

They finish with a chapter on subediting web pages. They conclude with a glossary of journalism terms, a sample house style guide, and standard proof correction symbols in UK and US style.

This is a good book. It’s readable, written by people who are clearly well-informed, and just about as up-to-date as it’s possible to be in the old-ish world of print publication.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Wynford Hicks and Tim Holmes, Subediting for Journalists, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.180, ISBN: 0415240859

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The Economist Style Guide

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best-selling guide to English usage and style rules

The Economist prides itself on good quality writing. The Economist Style Guide is the print version of their in-house guide on grammar and English usage which they issue to all their journalists. It’s designed to promote precision and clarity in writing – and the advice it offers is expressed in a witty and succinct manner. It gives general advice on writing skills, points out common errors and cliches, offers guidance on consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations and capital letters, and contains an exhaustive range of reference material.

The Economist Style GuideIt also includes a special section on American and British English, a fifty-four page fact checker, and a glossary. I particularly like the section called ‘Common Solecisms’ which warns against popular misunderstandings and points to words often used incorrectly.

Anticipate does not mean expect. Jack and Jill expected to marry; if they anticipated marriage, only Jill might find herself expectant.

The emphasis of the illustrative examples is on current affairs, politics, economics, and business – but the lessons in clear expression and the examples of tangled syntax and garbled journalese will be instructive to all writers who wish to sharpen their style.

It takes quite a tilt at the language of political correctness – and I think some of the following advice might be challenged. But it is so refreshingly un-stuffy, one reads on with a smile in the mind.

Avoid, where possible, euphemisms and circumlocutions promoted by interest-groups. In most contexts the hearing-impaired are simply deaf. It is no disrespect to the disabled sometimes to describe them as crippled. Female teenagers are girls, not women. The underprivileged may be disadvantaged, but are more likely just poor.

The guidance is arranged in logical, separate sections – political terms, metaphors, apostrophes, spelling, Americanisms – so you can easily find what you need. The bulk of the advice deals with common problems of English such as the difference between ‘compare with‘ and ‘compare to‘, but I was glad to see that rather like Keith Waterhouse (Waterhouse on Newspaper Style they do not leave the excesses of their own profession unexamined.

Avoid expressions used only by journalists, such as giving people the thumbs up, the thumbs down or the green light. Stay clear of gravy trains and salami tactics.

© Roy Johnson 2010

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The Economist Style Guide, London: Economist Books, 10th edition 2010, pp.272, ISBN: 1846681758

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The Writer’s Handbook

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addresses, contacts, resources, and advice for writers

The Writer’s Handbook is the ‘other’ reference manual for writers and people working in the media. It lists publishers in the UK and the US, offers advice to would-be writers on how to place their work, and counsels them on how to deal with agents and middlemen if they have the luck to be ‘accepted’. It’s a comprehensive guide which even goes into the detail of listing the key personnel you need to contact if that deathless prose of yours is ever to see the light of public day. How does it differ from the more established Writers and Artists Year Book?

The Writer's HandbookWell, it spreads itself just a little more generously across a wider range of media. There’s a bit more here on newspapers and magazines, more on radio, TV, small presses and theatre companies. There’s a particularly good section on library services, and there are tips on writing from well-known authors.

It’s updated every year, and many of the entries are annotated with subjective but useful comments on how much people pay – an important issue for hard-pressed writers. New features for the latest edition include how to crack the American market; e-books and the future of hard print; how to get into travel writing; and how newspaper serialisations work.

This is the information you will need for Getting Published. Recent editions have also featured best-seller lists and articles written by successful authors. There’s not a lot to choose between this and the Yearbook. Have a look at both and decide which one suits you.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Barry Turner (ed), The Writer’s Handbook, London: Macmillan, (issued annually) pp.832, ISBN: 0230207294

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The writer’s marketplace

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a selection of resources

You’ve written a short story, a novel, poems, your memoirs, or even an article on goldfish or steam engines. The problem is, how to get your work published? How can you find a publisher who will accept what you have produced? You need to be aware of the writer’s marketplace.

If you’ve had a preliminary stab at this, you’ve no doubt received a few rejection slips. Don’t be put off. Everybody gets them. It is not necessarily to do with the quality of your work. It’s much more likely to be a question of matching what you have to offer with what a publisher is looking for. Publishers have audiences and markets. They want to supply these markets with the products which sell.

Some publishers specialise in antiques, travel, or local history; others concentrate on modern fiction, historical fiction, or science fiction. You need to match what you have to offer with what they are looking for. It’s no good sending your family saga to a publisher who specialises in chic lit or travel guides. And if the latest fad in publishing is for Running Over Lemons from a House in Provence – that’s what they will be looking for.

However, many long term best-sellers have been written for niche audiences – such as Walter Wainwright’s walking guides to the Lake District, or Elizabeth David’s cookbooks. So the first thing to do is get to know your market. Fortunately, this problem has been around so long that there are now several excellent books on the market to help you with all the issues involved.

Writer's MarketplaceThe Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook
Without doubt, this is the most successful. It’s a number one best-seller which offers details of publishers, agents, and outlets in the US and UK. It tells you what they are looking for, where to contact them, and how to submit your work. But the real value for beginners is in the short essays offering advice to would-be writers and media workers which punctuate the listings. They cover fiction and poetry; drama scripts for TV, radio, theatre, and film; graphic illustration and design; plus photography and music.

The other features which make it particularly useful are general information on publishing methods, copyright and libel, income tax and allowances, and a list of annual competitions and their prizes. Recent editions have also included lists of the year’s bestsellers – including both the number of copies sold and the amount of money they’ve made. It is issued annually, and gets bigger each year.
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writer's marketplaceThe Writer’s Handbook
Barry Turner’s rival book does much the same thing – but focuses its attention on writers, and covers a slightly broader spread of media. In addition to the key areas of UK and US book publishers and agents, magazines, screen writing, TV and radio, theatre, film and video and poetry, this edition contains features on the appeal of biography; the uses and abuses of the English language; the challenges and rewards of self-publishing; writing poetry; and media contracts. This is well worth considering as an alternative.

Both of these books have extensive listings of all the outlets for creative work – fiction, journalism, sound broadcasting, photography, reporting, and editing. They also include mini-essays on various aspects of the publishing business, advising you how to place your work, where to find agents, and even how to sort out your tax problems after you hit the jackpot.
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writer's marketplaceThe Guardian Media Directory
If your writing is more geared to the mainstream media – newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, the Guardian annual directory is establishing itself as the major source of advice. It lists the addresses, phone numbers, websites and key personnel for companies in every sector of the media, from digital television to magazines, regional newspapers to publishing houses, think tanks to charities. This edition contains over 10,000 contacts and has been redesigned throughout.

There are lots of resources for writers on the Internet: the problem is knowing where to find them. Even trawling through search engine results can be time-consuming, and sometimes a dispiriting experience. Thank goodness then when somebody else has done all the research and written up the results.
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writer's marketplaceThe Internet: A Writer’s Guide
The main strength of Jane Dorner’s guide is that she is a professional writer who practices what she writes about. She writes for print and screen, and promotes her work via a personal web site. This book explores both the new opportunities for writers created by the Internet and the practicalities of publishing on your own site.

She touches on writing groups which exist in the form of mailing lists, websites, newsletters, chat groups, and conferences, and she also deals with eBooks plus annotated lists of all the sources a writer could possibly wish for – from libraries to bookshops, dictionaries to writing circles, newspapers to writing style guides, electronic publishers to free Internet service providers.
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Writer’s Market
This provides no-nonsense advice and authoritative guidance you need to get published and to get paid. With updated listings and ‘need-to-know’ publishing advice, Writer’s Market gives writers over 4,000 listings for consumer magazines, book publishers, trade journals, and contests and awards. It also includes complete contact information for fifty top literary agents.

There are dynamic interviews with established writers, plus publishers, editors and successful freelancers. This is essential publishing information and advice, including pay rates, a guide to book publisher imprints and valuable self-marketing tips. If you want to find out what’s available, or if you are really serious about placing what you have written with a commercial publisher – then sooner or later you will need one of these books. There are others, but these are the best; and every professional writer I have known has one or more of them on the shelf.
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writer's marketplaceWriters’ Questions and Answers
Writers who wish to publish their work are often baffled by some of the mysteries of the publishing process itself. How can you get the attention of a publisher? Do you need an agent? How much can you expect to get paid? Should you submit an outline – or the complete work? Gordon Wells’ book answers these question, plus lots more which are frequently asked by people trying to get a foothold in the world of published writing.

The press always seems to have stories of first-time authors who have been paid a five or six-figure advance for their first novel. But those who have tried to do the same thing know that it’s a far more common experience to be dealing with rejection slips. How do you break into this seemingly charmed world?

Well, these guidance notes certainly tell you how to learn from rejection – and what to do about it. The advice is all practical, realistic, and based on the clear-eyed realisation that if you wish to succeed in this extremely competitive world – you need to know how it works.

Wells tackles all the most frequently asked questions – Who is the best person to approach with your masterpiece? Does vanity publishing work? What makes a best-seller? What if somebody poaches your ideas? Which publishers pay best?

If you want to move beyond the comforts of your local writers’ circle into the world of commercial publishing, you should read what he has to say. Keep dreams of success in mind by all means, but take the trouble to learn how professional writers actually work.
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The Writer's MarketWriter’s Market UK 2009
This is a huge, 1,000 page compendium of advice, resources, and detailed information on how writers can locate markets and get their work into print. It has feature articles written by well-known authors giving advice on breaking into print. These are surrounded by listings of publishers, magazines, literary agents, and broadcast outlets. Then come specialized resources such as prizes and competitions, bursaries and fellowships, writers groups, and web sites.

The feature articles are precisely the sort of advice that aspirant writers are most likely to want and need. How to tackle the various genres of fiction writing: the short story, children’s writing, crime, and the novel. What agents and publishers are looking for – and how to approach them. Writing for radio, the Web, newspapers and magazines are all covered well,

There are essays on how books are designed, financed, and marketed, plus why you should know about contracts and legal issues. There are articles on the odd but very profitable field of ghost writing, and when you have made lots of money how to deal with agents, and how to promote your work once it’s published.

There are huge listings of bursaries, prizes, competitions, writers’ foundations, and all sorts of support to help the struggling want-to-be. And testing it out for being up to date, I found all sorts of on line resources for would-be writers: magazines, forums, self-help groups, web sites full of resources, writing software, plus competitions and prizes.

Given the differences in page and font sizes, it’s difficult to do a direct quantitative comparison with its two main rivals, but having looked through all three recently, I’d say that this gives the other two a very good run for their money.
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return button Publish your writing

© Roy Johnson 2009

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Waterhouse on Newspaper Style

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writing skills via amusing critique of tabloid journalism

Waterhouse on Newspaper Style has a complex history. It was originally written in 1979 as a series of style notes for journalists on the Daily Mirror, and it has gone in and out of print ever since – whilst simultaneously establishing a reputation as a classic of clear guidance and an analysis of tabloid journalism. Keith Waterhouse is one of the old Fleet Street school who actually care about clarity, accuracy, and good prose style.

Waterhouse on Newspaper Style Writing from the point of view of a working journalist, he inspects the linguistic practice of the press and reveals its weaknesses in a series of witty mini-essays. He adopts the A-to-Z format – from Adjectives through Metaphor to the Weather – looking at usage and abusage in a way which is both instructive and very amusing.

It’s easy to score points off the tabloid fixation with headlines which combine rhyme, alliteration, cliché, and weak puns [RAMBO BOY ON RAMPAGE]. However, in the course of dissecting these literary weaknesses, Waterhouse forces us to think about the everyday misuse of language in a way which is instructive beyond the pages our daily newspapers.

For instance, in terms of the discourse of the medium, he points out that popular journalism employs an artificial language which nobody actually speaks – as in “the dollar takes a pounding”.

He describes this approach as being like “ransom notes which are made up of lettering cut out of various publications”. And all through this amusing tour of catchwords, journalese, officialese, and tautology he has perceptive advice to offer on the most basic elements of good writing – such as accuracy and restraint in the use of the comma, and alertness to the cliché, the vogue word, and the tired metaphor.

Another of his observations which struck me as usefully perceptive was the reason he gives for distrusting those who use too much jargon:

to use outsiders’ jargon is to take their own evaluation of themselves on trust – or anyway to give the impression of doing so. This is one good reason why journalists should never resort to the jargon of the field they cover.

Waterhouse illuminates the conventions of good and bad writing without once resorting to the polysyllabic terms of conventional grammar. There are no ‘objects of a preposition’ or ‘possessive pronouns’ here. Everything is done via plain prose and good examples. He comes out on the side of the specific, the concrete, and the direct expression. We should write ‘red’, not ‘brightly coloured’, ‘rain’ not ‘bad weather’, and ‘began’ not ‘commenced’.

It’s a joy to read, it’s instructive, and you’ll search your own prose more rigorously to avoid the solecisms he discusses. But the book’s idiosyncratic career still seems to be in progress. My edition is a recent Penguin paperback, yet when I checked the Net, it didn’t appear to be in print. Keep looking. It’s well worth the effort.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Keith Waterhouse, Waterhouse on Newspaper Style London: Penguin, 1993, pp.250, ISBN: 0140118195

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We the Media

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open sources – writing and new web technology

O’Reilly publish computer books and software guidance manuals, but they also support the open source movement. This seeks to make the code of software available to be developed and used free of charge. This book is one of their contributions to the polemic. We the Media is a study of committed writing which argues the case for what author Dan Gillmor calls open source journalism. He takes the idea of sharing code into the realms of information exchange. To this is coupled his enthusiasm for blogging as the greatest form of New Journalism. He also discusses the other forms in which information can easily be transmitted – such as peer-to-peer file sharing, Wikis, the mobile connected camera, text messaging, and RSS feeds.

Open Source JournalismHis basic argument is that journalists, news broadcasters, public relations people, political activists, and anybody else who wants their message to be taken seriously should make full use of these latest communication tools. He gives plenty of examples of IT-activism – people mounting public information on web sites when the authorities removed it from public view; others raising political campaign funds from adverts on blogs.

He seems a little over-optimistic about their effectiveness for political activism, but on firmer ground when it comes to more neutral journalistic uses.

For anybody who is short of ideas, his chapters are packed with practical examples of successful enterprises which have been launched on the strength of a new blog. These range from one-person campaigns or news services, to blogs which generate income or sponsorship. One intrepid soul asked people for the money to send him to report the war in Iraq – and he got it.

Gillmor also gives a cautious glimpse into the future by looking at the latest trends in web technology. This includes news aggregators, RSS feeds, and Web Services. All of these enable information to be gathered automatically and customised by the user.

In the latter part of the book he looks at some of the legal implications of the latest technologies – cases where people have claimed to be libeled, copyright cases, cybersquatting, even cases where people have sought to prevent others deep-linking into their sites. He deals with all these issues in a way which supports freedom of speech, whilst recognising that it might sometimes be put to negative purposes.

Strangely enough, he does have some reservations about the current state of copyright, which he sees as increasingly restrictive to the point of abuse:

What were once 14-year terms have now been extended to the life of the author plus 75 years, or 95 years when a copyright is held by a corporation. By amazing coincidence, copyright terms seem to get extended every time Mickey Mouse comes close to entering the public domain

This is a committed and wide-ranging polemic which explores the very latest developments in online communications – both from a technological and a content point of view.

In keeping with the high standards he advocates throughout, he acknowledges and references all his sources, there is a huge webliography listing all the homepages, sites, and blogs mentioned; and the book has its own web site where you can follow up on his arguments, find software, and even download a copy of the book free of charge.

© Roy Johnson 2006

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Dan Gillmor, We the Media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2006, pp.336, ISBN: 0596102275

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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

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Wikipedia is now the biggest encyclopedia in the world. It’s currently twenty-five times larger than Encyclopedia Britannica, and expanding with every day that passes. That’s because anybody can add entries, edit the content, correct mistakes, or contribute new materials. But if you go to Wikipedia and try to start adding your own entries, supplementing other people’s contributions, or correcting mistakes – it’s not quite as simple as it might seem.

Wikipedia: The Missing ManualThere’s online help, but it’s rather deeply buried. That’s why books such as this one from the ‘missing manuals’ series have come into being. They provide the user guides which nobody in open source projects has got round to writing yet. This one doesn’t just tell you about how to create new Wikipedia entries or edit ones that already exist, it explains what types of new material will be acceptable, and which will not.

For instance, I found an entry recently which gave information about the main road which runs through the suburb of south Manchester UK where I live. It listed public buildings, a little local history, and topographical details.

But if I had a dog called Bosun and keyed in an entry on his appearance and habits, that would be removed. The reason? It doesn’t pass the ‘notability’ test. In other words, who cares about your pet dog, or your lovely daughter, or your taste in wallpaper? Yet if you happened to have some botanical information about sycamore trees, or the statistics related to voting patterns, that might be welcomed as new material.

John Broughton covers all the essentials a beginner will need to know – how to add or edit entries; how to create hyperlinks and footnotes; and how to add graphics. So if you would like to join the tens of thousands of (unpaid) volunteers adding to the six million articles in 250 languages – this is a great place to learn the rules of engagement.

The whole of Wikipedia is supervised by volunteer editors; everything is checked; and a record is kept of any changes made, plus when they were made, and who made them. If you were to insert a paragraph saying that Elvis Presley had recently been seen in Tesco, it would immediately be deleted. And if you mischievously added links to your own web site hoping to drive up traffic, these pages would be ‘reverted’, which is Wikispeak to say that they would be wound back to what they were before.

These are some of the reasons why readers can trust Wikipedia more than is sometimes thought. It is a self-regulating mechanism, and vigorous systems exist to combat mistakes, vandalism, and spam. Even the editors have other editors, checking their work.

Even though anybody can add entries to Wikipedia, it’s quite interesting to note what is not allowed. The list includes the presentation of original ideas, routine news coverage, self-promotion, instruction manuals, plot summaries and song lyrics, announcements, sports, and gossip. That’s why my dog Bosun doesn’t get a mention.

John Broughton leaves the technicalities of how to create pages and arrange tables of contents until the end. These sections also include some interesting details on Wikipedia’s house style – no definite or indefinite articles in titles for instance, and bulleted lists are discouraged.

The latter part of the book deals with issues which will interest information architects – the classification of data, how articles are categorized, and how Wikipedia deals with ‘disambiguation’ – which occurs when a single term can have multiple meanings. For instance ‘mercury’ could be the liquid metal or the mythological messenger. Wikipedia deals with these cases using what’s called ‘the principle of least astonishment’ – in other words, what would a reader most likely expect to see listed first.

He ends with some interesting tips on editing and what are essentially collaborative writing skills, plus guidance on checking sources and links, and striving for accuracy in all things. This is rather like an excellent potted course on online journalism. So if you fancy making a contribution, just sign on and get started. Wikipedia even lists articles which are waiting to be written. And to complement its spirit of open sources, the whole book is also available at Wikipedia.org where you are invited to edit and enhance its value.

© Roy Johnson 2008

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John Broughton, Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, O’Reilly, Sebastopol: CA, 2008, pp.477, ISBN: 0596515162

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Writer’s Market UK

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where and how to sell what you write

The best-selling guide to marketing your writing so far is The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, with The Writer’s Handbook a close second. But there’s always room for competition in an open market – and Writer’s Market UK is competition writ large. It’s a huge, 1,000 page compendium of advice, resources, and detailed information on how writers can locate markets and get their work into print. The format for these books is now fairly standardised.

Writer's Market UK They have feature articles written by well-known authors giving advice on breaking into print. These are surrounded by listings of publishers, magazines, literary agents, and broadcast outlets. Then come specialized resources such as prizes and competitions, bursaries and fellowships, writers groups, and web sites.

The usefulness of this information relies on its being accurate, up-to-date, and annotated to explain the nuances and differences between one source and the next. In other words, the compilers need to know what they’re talking about. This book scores well on all counts, and the editor Caroline Taggart has done a good job.

For instance, the feature articles are precisely the sort of advice that aspirant writers are most likely to want and need. How to tackle the various genres of fiction writing: the short story, children’s writing, crime, and the novel. What agents and publishers are looking for – and how to approach them. Writing for radio, the Web, newspapers and magazines are all covered well,

There are essays on how books are designed, financed, and marketed, plus why you should know about contracts and legal issues. There are articles on the odd but very profitable field of ghost writing, and when you have made lots of money how to deal with agents, and how to promote your work once it’s published.

There are huge listings of bursaries, prizes, competitions, writers’ foundations, and all sorts of support to help the struggling want-to-be. And testing it out for being up to date, I found all sorts of on line resources for would-be writers: magazines, forums, self-help groups, web sites full of resources, writing software, plus competitions and prizes.

Given the differences in page and font sizes, it’s difficult to do a direct quantitative comparison with its two main rivals, but having looked through all three recently, I’d say that this gives the other two a very good run for their money.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Caroline Taggart (ed), Writer’s Market UK, London: David & Charles, issued annually, pp.976, ISBN: 0715332856

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Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook

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best-selling guide to publishers, agents, and outlets

If you’ve just finished producing your masterpiece, this writer’s yearbook will help you to bring it to the marketplace. It’s a well-established reference guide for writers, journalists, photographers, and other people in the creative arts. The heart of the book is its amazingly comprehensive listings. It offers full contact details of publishers, agents, and institutions who deal with writers and creative arts people. The lists cover the UK and US, as well as other English-speaking countries.

Writers & Artists YearbookIn recent years, short essays have been added to each section offering advice to would-be writers and media workers. Pay attention to these: they’re written by professionals with experience and a proven track record. The information they offer will repay the price of the book ten times over. They cover fiction and poetry; drama scripts for TV, radio, theatre, and film; graphic illustration and design; plus photography and music. The other features which make it useful are general information on publishing methods, copyright and libel, income tax and allowances, and a particularly useful list of annual competitions and their prizes.

Bonus items seem to be added with each edition – such as a list of the highest earning books of the previous year, specialist literary agents, how to prepare and submit a manuscript, and even (if the worst comes to the worst) how to claim social security benefits. The latest edition also includes sections on e-publishing, ghostwriting, distribution, adaptation, and digital imaging.

Additions to the latest edition include: Self-publishing; How to publicise your book; How to get an agent’s attention: Getting cartoons published; Blogging; Crime writing; and Can you recommend an agent?

Like many other reference books, it represents very good value for money in terms of bulk information – but more importantly it’s information which is reliable, up-to-date, and difficult to locate elsewhere.

If you have any serious intention of entering the commercial market as a writer or someone working in one of the other creative arts – then this is a book which you will need sooner or later. It’s no wonder that it sits near the top of the Amazon ratings all the year round.

© Roy Johnson 2012

Writers' and Artists' Yearbook   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Writers' and Artists' Yearbook   Buy the book at Amazon US

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, London: A & C Black (issued annually) pp.816, ISBN: 1408192195

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