Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published
It's not that often that an author writes a book about writing and marketing that truly ascends beyond the standard advice found in many professional publications or other books about writing. But Maralys Wills has done so.Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published(a title I might note that seems to violate ironically her own advice about creating a brief title that "grabs"-- like Benchley's Jaws or Michener's Hawaii) immediately pulls the reader into worthwhile content.  As her title says, Wills explains in clear, everyday language, what serious writers must do if they want their manuscript to go further than a file cabinet or a computer disk. Wills describes the arduous "bumpy" road she followed to get her first book published--and her second--and her third--and so on. Her own road was anything but smooth. In fact, she confesses it was full of potholes, ruts, detours--and sometimes, bad directions from those who were supposed to send her on her way.  Thus it is that Wills uses her years of experience as an author and later as a college writing professor, to explain to beginning writers and competing professionals just what it takes to get published. She starts by discussing how to generate salable story or book ideas. She then carefully and skillfully paces the reader through key elements of marketable writing all the way to crafting communications to publishers that will "sell" the book.  Wills interweaves personal anecdotes into her "teaching" of sound writing and marketing principles. She writes clever anecdotes. She uses dialogue creatively. She blends practical instruction with easy to read mini-stories about her personal writing and publishing adventures.  In sum, Wills takes readers off a fast-paced freeway into the colorful scenery of bumpy but genuinely educational secondary roads to show them the realities of the highly competitive writing and publishing industry. The book is possibly one of the best professional road maps on the market. --Ray Newton, 2008--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.