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Title: The Career Novelist : A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success by Donald Maass ISBN: 0-435-08693-6 Publisher: Heinemann Publishing Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.46 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Invaluable "reality check" for aspiring novelists
Comment: The down-to-earth, practical, useful advice in this book can't be had for money (or wait . . . it can be had for the price of this book . . .)
Donald Maass has been an agent for longer than I can imagine and he has been a novelist in his own right for years. The man knows the market. He knows what kinds of lies writers tell themselves and what kinds of fantasies interfere with getting the job done -- writing and selling your novel.
Far from being a commodity-centered approach to the modern market this book is a sympathetic account of how to do it and what to watch out for from a man with a lifetime's experience in writing, production, and sales.
I keep buying copies to give to friends and acquaintances who have a novel and want to market it. While some of his information can be had from other sources, his depth of knowledge and all-round market savvy is worth its weight in gold for anybody with a novel who wants to know what's next.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Enlightening Visit with a Literary Expert
Comment: I've read a number of books by agents, but none of them have focused on the needs, expectations, hopes, and mistakes of the fiction writer like this book does. Donald Maass is a triple publishing expert: a former editor, a published fiction author, and a successful literary agent. Reading the book, I felt like I had been introduced to my long lost uncle by marriage to my second cousin, who, upon learning of my interest in the publishing world, freely shared all his expertise. While dining at his favorite restaurant (my treat of course) he told me what really happens in the publishing world. How do publishers afford those astronomical advances I see in Publishers Weekly? How does he choose the query letters that make him want to see a manuscript? How do authors help, or more often, hurt their careers? Now I know. He also shares his formula for calculating when a published author can make the leap into full-time writing without undue fear of crashing back to earth and having to get a job at the local convenience store to meet the bills. The best non-fiction books educate while entertaining, and Maass' friendly, chatty style is the Madeira sauce on this highly satisfying, juicy slice of steak.
Rating: 1
Summary: I'm really amazed at the other reviews.
Comment: I've been a VP for a major mutual fund compay, started 3 companies, traveled all over Western Europe, Africa, and unfortunately only some of Asia. Why do I start my review with this informaton? Because this 'Donald Maass' is everything that is wrong about an agent...or SHOULD BE. He explicitly tells hopeful authors all the ways to NOT communicate with him, and what NOT to say. Then he offers little tidbits about what impresses him. And where I've been wouldn't impress him at all if it doesn't have a meaningful part of plot in the manuscript you're sending him. He doesn't want to know you. He wants a machine. He wants 100 Dean Koontzes or Robin Cooks.
Yes, he mentions the 'I can do better than they can' syndrome. And of course one should not belittle someone else in an introduction to an agent. But sheesh, to use the above two as any comparison to Updike or Block or John D. MacDonald...well you have to worry about his instintive ability to see good writing.
And it's truly scary if this is what the 'agent' world has been reduced to. His 'successful agent' firm only manages to read FORTY manuscripts a year? Are they stupid? Are they lazy? Are they elitist? He certainly comes across as so. And it's an obvious marketing tool for his potential authors to come running to him. The one good thing is that if you're truly interested in writing and get Writer's Digest, you can safely cross of the name of his firm if you think your stuff is any good. I certainly hope that most agent firms don't limit themselves to READING 40 manuscripts a year. I could do that in a month. Just me. One person. If he was honest and said that he is the only person that actually READS anything, then that's another story. But he brags about his 6th Ave. address and office space. We're supposed to be impressed.
I read the book. Sure, I guess it had some good obvious common sense things. But they're all things that are required to make a success of anyone in the business world also. What's the point of an agent if he/she wants YOU to do the advertising/promotion writing for him/her? What's the point of an agent actually adding (after brow-beating so many submiitters of his little pet peeves) a statement like 'if any of your books have ever been on a top 10 list then please don't forget to mention it!'.
Basically, this book is everything that you should NOT look for in an agent. This guy is marketing his services, by writing a book (actually, it appears that he's baited a number of people into buying his stuff'). He never mentions his actual name for the '14 novels under an pseudonym', but it's unfortunately obvious that he's trying the 'late-night TV Don Lafavre or whatever his name is' method of making money and attracting established authors. And his love of Dean Koontz (as he uses him in his prototypical perfect one-page email or letter to an agent), makes one worry that his ability to read talent is less than extraordinary.
The first 50 pages basically state that the best way to get his attention is to have already written a bestseller, or have an established author (like Dean Koontz) have read your stuff and recommended it.
Do yourselves a favor. It's hard enough getting published today. But Faulkner, Salinger, and any number of other authors would never even get their manuscript read by this person. FORTY manuscripts a YEAR? Why bother sending this guy anything? He gives the psychotherapy reasons for all the idiosyncracies of the aspiring authors who are foolish enough to send his 'firm' anything, but he doesn't bother explaining his own need for a psychotherapist, for why he really doesn't want to do any work; ideally wants a former 'bestselling author' or author that's been 'recommended by a current bestselling author' as all his submissions. After all, if his company only actually reads 40 manuscripts a year of 5000 submitted, then I can only guess he get's a 100% satisfaction ratio of former bestsellers who have been abandoned by other publishers, or authors who have managed to harass current authors with a rep to recommend their stuff.
Do NOT read this book folks. If you want to know what he says, I can encapsulate it for ya: Being an author is a business. That's it. What he doesn't say is that finding a good agent can make this travail easier if you're good. Trust me on this or not. I've written a couple of reviews here on Amazon. I tell it like I think it is. If I had an employee that acted like this agent, I'd fire him.
And no. I've never been published. The day I am, I know that it won't be via this person, nor any of his advice. Read my one line synopsis above. That's all he basically says in 160 pages or so. I've never been so disappointed in a book. It's almost weird reading a person who has no ability but obviously a connection to the publishing world. Alas, that is still really the best way and the way most authors get published. He actually SAYS to get a publisher before an agent! Ack.
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Title: Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass ISBN: 158297182X Publisher: Writer's Digest Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman ISBN: 068485743X Publisher: Fireside Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne, Dave King ISBN: 0062720465 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: How to Write a Damn Good Novel (How to Write a Damn Good Novel) by James N. Frey ISBN: 0312010443 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1987 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life by Noah Lukeman ISBN: 0312309287 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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