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Academic Resources
Texts
Computer and Software Issues
$Fee based. They will translate your oddball word processing files into something more common to keep your publisher happy. You upload your files, they fix them, send them back.
There's a small industry of publishing for writers, including reference books, motivational books, magazines, and tutorials. Here are some recent ones:
Christian Writer's Market Guide [current year]. This is Sally Stuart's annual reference for the Christian publishing scene. Get the latest one. You'll find addresses, wise counsel, listings of magazines and book publishers, plus markets for difficult genre like poetry and photography. The cost will be about $25.
The Complete Guide to Christian Writing and Speaking, edited by Susan Titus Osborn, published by Write Now Publications, a division of ACW, in Phoenix. Revised edition. These 18 contributors are veterans who have placed their books, scripts, and articles in the marketplace with success. Lee Roddy's chapter on contracts alone justifies the $15 price. This is writers' conference fare, with good material on the unique issues idealistic Christian writers live with.
No More Rejections, by Alice Orr. One of many titles published by Writer's Digest Books. The title may evoke "Yeah--right," but there's some good content especially for fiction writing.
The Everything Guide to Writing Children's Books, by Lesley Bolton (Adams Media, 2003, $14.95). This is a basic overview of the unique issues related to publishing your children's manuscript, including some accurate discussion of self-publishing.
How to Publish Your Poetry, by Helene Ciaravino (SquareOne Publishers, $15.95). Yes, there are words on these pages! Poetry is nearly impossible to get into print, but she has some suggestions of journals and small press items that raise hopes. She also discusses the self-publishing option.Book Proposals That $ell, by W. Terry Whalin (Write Now Publications, 2005, $14). Terry Whalin has been active in the Christian book scene in numerous roles, including acquisitions, and here lends some practical, targeted counsel for plausible book proposals when you get that far. Of course, it's always better to relate face to face with an editor, but that won't happen for most writers most of the time, and even then the acquiring editor will want to see a proposal. Whalin offers some useful samples of good proposals and answers the format questions that so many writers worry about. There's a good chapter on creating titles, a common weakness we see in submissions to The Writer's Edge.
Helpful counsel on describing your novel is available in a new book from Writer's Digest: Give 'Em What They Want by Blythe Camenson and Marshall Cook, subtitled "The Right Way to Pitch Your Novel to Editors and Agents." This would provide good advice on your Writer's Edge submission as well as any direct relationships with editors.
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Poetry Resources
Although The Writer's Edge does not accept or consider poetry submissions, we realize this is a strong area of interest among writers. The commercial opportunity for poetry is almost non-existent but the exercise of writing and reading poetry will be an important aspect of your development as a writer. The following web sites may be helpful:
Gerard Manley Hopkins
www.poets.org
"perhaps the most impressive and well-funded poetry-oriented site." [Books, April 2000]
www.poems.com
useful service to find poem sources in print. Includes news and reports of poetry publications.
http://www.ilovepoetry.com
The site offers advice, listings, and publishing tips. Useful site to find other sites.
http://www.LuciShaw.com Web site of a leading Christian poet.
A good reference source: Writer's Digest Books regularly produces a Poet's Market. Look for a title like 2006 Poet's Market.
Great Books OnLine Outstanding reference source for free classics, dictionaries, and poetry from Bartleby.Com
Also see book choices in previous question above.
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We recommend Sally Stuart's Christian Writer's Market Guide as the best annual directory of addresses and personnel for publishers in the Christian market. Most bookstores have it or can order it. It comes out fresh every spring.
Now for online sources, you can try the directory Vanderbilt University provides, which covers the larger publishers. But quite a few Christian firms are missing. So try the ECPA site, which provides web addresses for your target company if it's a member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Here are your web addresses:
Vanderbilt --alphabetical listing of publishers Vanderbilt -- email addresses
And of course your local library will have Literary Marketplace
, Writer's Market, and Books in Print.Consider Publishers' Catalogues
Home Page at www.lights.com/publisher/
This is an international source of information on publishers, based in the
UK, which has quite a few US publishers but not all the religious ones.
Publisher Guidelines:
Try any publisher's web site for a page on "writer information."
Writer's Digest has some of the religious publishers' guidelines
available on its site. We expect these to stay current. They will give you the
key product lines for a number of the larger Christian publishers. Take a look
at this link:
Writer's Digest
Religious Guidelines and click to religious publishers.
The Authorlink Web site has guidelines from a few religious publishers and numerous general publishers.
Services
For help in self-publishing (but
see our "Opinions" section), you may need a broker or
advisor to sort out features and prices. We can recommend Susan Perez, based in
Pennsylvania. Check her web site at www.perezprintpro.com. The site has help
for small publishers and other printing services.
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