Writer's Market 2009

(I hope this is the best place for this: mods, do please move it if you would prefer to have it somewhere else.)

I've been asked to review a writers' guide: the 2009 edition of Writer's Market UK.

I intend to include with my review a list of all the things I'd like to see added to the guide, and all the things I'd prefer to do without.

I'd like to see a lot more information given on the nuts and bolts of publishing and scam-avoidance: for example, advice on how to recognise a vanity press at fifty paces, and the real differences between self-publishing and vanity publishing.

If any of you have your own suggestions, ideas, or pet hates, I'd be happy to add them to my list. Just add your comments here, or to my blog page here, and I'll pass them all on to the Writer's Market team.

Don't worry if you're outside the UK: if you've got an idea, an opinion, or a point to make, I'll be very pleased to hear from you.

Ah, Alleycat, thank you for taking the time to respond.

In my UK edition there is a plain, no-nonsense alphabetical index but no subject index (is that what you object to?) and I was going to suggest that they added a subject index--not at the expense of the alphabetical one, though.

I wouldn't like articles scattered through the listings, either. In the UK edition the articles are all at the front, and the different classifications don't even have a tiny intro (although they did in last year's edition). I'd like an introductory article at the start of each section. Not a tiny little para like in the 2008 edition, a useful piece on using the listings and what to avoid.

When I worked as an editor, I remember receiving a form to fill in so that the house I worked for could be included in a similar guide.

We decided not to submit it, because we were a packager, not a publisher, and from past experience we knew that the distinction between the two wasn't clear enough in writers' minds.

Nevada, my version doesn't have that page and a half of intro to each section, but I would like it to: I'll suggest it, and feel backed up by you when I do so. Thank you.

Jeanne, you're right about there not being enough stuff in the guides to warn people about scammers: but I can see how it would be impossible for the editors of such guides to screen out vanity publishers (and in fact I've blogged about this just this week--there's a link to the blog in my signature, down there, look). Publishers aren't going to admit to being vanities, are there? But perhaps a good article which outlines how to spot a scam would be useful. I'll suggest it.