"Do this and be successful!" books - argh! Do they or is it a waste of time and $?

Butterfly,

Those are just resources to find agent's names. They are a starting point, if you will. No matter where you find the names, you need to research agents at Preditors and Editors and Writer's Beware. Also, I'm sure you know about the beware forums here at AW.

No matter where you find the name, you are going to have to take time to make sure they are legitimate, check their guidelines, who their clients are, etc.

ETA: Agent Query and Query Tracker are great websites for finding agents. But, you will still need to research them.

butterfly,

I don't think either that book or that site purport themselves to be "how to" guides. They contain information, including the submission instructions for agents, and are tools that can help you to research agents and determine if they might be a good fit for you.

No guide or website can guarantee you will be successfully published. Anyone who does "guarantee" that is most likely not legitimate.

I've got the hardcopy edition of Writer's Market checked out from my local library. It's got some good articles about the business side of getting published, but I wouldn't classify it as a "How To" guide at all. Like Susan, I'd call these particular guides tools to use or not use. One avenue for finding out where to market your work.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I'm with everyone who's said they are "how to" books per se. But to answer your other question: I found the publisher for my second book with Writers' Market 2007. I wouldn't have found it without that information. But yes, still do the research. Not everyone in Writers' Market is legit. I once tried an "agent"s website and got a porn site instead!

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I found my first agent through Literary Market Place, I think, and have found lots of short-form markets through Writer's Market through the years. They're useful reference books, not "how-to" books, as others have said.

Now I generally use the Internet because that tends to work better for me as a reference source than checking in hard-copy books, but the reference books seem as sound as ever. Obviously they're going to be updated annually rather than whenever anything changes, but apart from that they're a good choice.

Siri Kirpal: Probably what happened there is that the business in question ceased operations and a porn company took over its vacated website (though it could have been a typo, I suppose).

I subscribe to the "Guide to Literary Agents" feed, and have gotten a lot of useful information. I also have a book called "Best of the Magazine Markets for Writers". These are not the same as what I think you mean, what I like to call "how-to-write-a-book" books. Examples of those are "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White or "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. These two books are invaluable, as well as some others, but I am leery of the "how-to" books as a whole, because some seem to be unnecessary. Others have helped me immensely. If you're looking into books on writing, I think it would be best to research each book before you buy, and remember that sometimes the best way to learn how to write is to read books in the genre you write, and also to just write. And when you get information from Writer's Market or anything else, I think it's great that so many agents and publications have web sites, so you can check things out for yourself.