REVIEW: Writer’s Market: Guide to Getting Published

[Mike Gange]

By Mike Gange

 

As with most writers, one of my essential tools is a writer’s guide or a writer’s digest that gives some ideas on how to market a magazine piece or book. I found the 2010 version of Writer’s Market: Guide to Getting Published to be an interesting and valuable addition to my work desk.

The last few years have not been boom years for the publishing industry, point out the authors. “In 1999, there were over 31, 000 magazines tracked by the National Directory of Magazines; at the start of 2008 there were 22,662,” the book says. There were 191 new magazines launched in 2008, down from 271 in 2007.

This is a good news/bad news kind of statistic. As publishing has downsized, there are fewer opportunities to get published. On the other hand, the downsizing has also meant that more magazines need to use freelancers. In my experience, not everyone who works in the publishing industries can become a published writer, so while I feel badly for the editors and editorial workers out of a job, I don’t feel they will be taking work from me or other writers. Time constraints, desire to write or other challenges keep those who were once on the editorial side of a magazine from picking up and becoming a writer.

Writer’s Market includes some stats on what kinds of magazines have experienced a decline in sales and ads in the past ten years. Magazines in the areas of sports and sporting goods have declined by 61%, entertainment by 66%, and newsmagazines by 69%. Surprisingly some magazines have remained viable and growing. Bridal magazines have seen a growth of 189%. Golf magazines have grown by 42% and interior design and decoration magazines have grown by 34%.

What all of those genres of magazines have in common is readership. Baby Boomers are now well into their sixties at the top of the population bulge, and the youngest boomers are approaching or are into their fifties. That group is not interested in pursuing sports in a big way, or in a way that includes reading about it. Boomers are looking forward to their daughters getting married, to going golfing and to redecorating their homes. The old adage seems to hold true: follow the money. Boomers are still shaping consumer sales, be that with magazines or Beatles records that have been re-recorded, re-engineered and re-released.

As for the book publishing industry, fiction has seen the largest growth, hitting 99% in the last five years. Biographies are up by 54%, while books about cooking are up by 37% and books on travel are up by 34%.

While there are still some lonely writers, working in their garret and perhaps cranking out revision after revision in pencil, then finding their work to be a huge success, they are the exceptions. Writers are increasingly told to network, use on-line search engines and to use bookstores as a barometer of what is selling. How does this bookstore barometer work? By keeping an eye on what is selling, writers are paying attention to what is being marketed.

When I was a student in school, we were told not to mark in our text books. My grade seven teacher geography would have us underline in pencil the key points she wanted to stress about how other peoples in the world lived and survived. Then in June we would have to take two full school days and erase all those pencil marks to her satisfaction. We wore out hundreds of those pink erasers, the ones that fit into the gap formed by your thumb and forefinger, rubbing out the details she had emphasized. (I suggested that we just leave the underlining in place for next year’s students and it would save both of us time. Mrs W. looked at me over her glasses and said “that is enough out of you, MIS-TER! You know you should not be writing in a book Ever.”)

The irony was not lost on me, but Mrs. W’s lesson stayed with me. I never liked to write in a book after that. Sometime after college, I decided I was darn well going to mark up any book I bought, to better use it as a working tool. That’s what I intent to do with this new book.

Get back to me next year at this time, and I will show you my well marked up, well read and well loved copy of Writer’s Market.

Mike Gange is a teacher in Fredericton who is taking six months away from the classroom to write.

 

 

[Ryan Goble]

Hi Mike you might also cross post this in poets and writers group- those teachers might dig this info! BTW - is the a cross post of a review you published somewhere else?  If so feel free to link to the publication!

[Ryan Goble]

Also note, I changed the title so folks browsing the discussion boards will know what they're about to click on before clicking through.