Review: Sage Advice for the Novice, but Overall Nothing New
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2012
I fully admit I probably never would have read this book had it not been free.  I also quickly realized I could only handle it in small doses, so I read 2 or 3 of the essays each night and then gave it a rest until I completed it.The book is composed of essays and dated blog posts from various mystery, horror, and other genre writers - a few which have recently been making a big name in the self-publishing market after crossing over from traditional publishing. J.A. Konrath is one such name who has a few essays and rants included.Various topics include time management, being disciplined, writing what you want to read, persistence, success, premise, free lancing, research, bad habits, point of view, structure, dialogue, self-promotion and more. There's also a section on the business aspect with lots of information on agents, query letters, and publishing.Much of it becomes repetitive and is information we've all heard before, and practically every other essay mentions Stephen King.Several of the blog posts date themselves to 2009, so it's old information where Ebook technology is concerned, although I did like Konrath's piece about how well he'd been doing on his own on Kindle back then. Check out his blog to see how he's done since then!My favorites, and the ones I found most informative, were Robert Kroese's "Write the Novel You Want To Read," Konrath's mantra about staying on track and tips on getting into print, Nicholson's bit on bad habits of highly ineffective writers, and David J. Montgomery's "Morrell's Point of View."Nicholson also writes a good piece on how to choose good character names. Alexandria Sokoloff has a brilliant piece on imagery. Montgomery also pays homage to the book reviewer and the respect they deserve in another essay. And MJ Rose has a superb piece about E-Publishing even though it is dated 2009.Hyperlinks to each author's website or blog can be found at the end of each essay, along with nice bios of each near the end. So, the book is a good starting point for novice writers seeking out sage advice and a road map as to where to get other good information and tips on the web. Sadly, 16% of the Ebook is a laundry list of Nicholson's own work, blurbs for a dozen or so of his books, and hyperlinks to Amazon to purchase all of it.Though several essays preach about good formatting and editing, the book suffers from a small lack of each, but nothing too distracting overall.