Review - 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might

78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might by Pat Walsh

rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a three-star ("liked it") book for me mainly because it didn't suck me in . . . but that is not to say that it isn't a very important book. It's time to take all of the feel-good compliments that the people who love you give about your writing and wake up to the real world.

The number one reason that Pat Walsh, an editor at MacAdam/Cage, gives that your book will never be published is that you have not written it. Talk is cheap, and writing is very difficult.

Throughout the book, Mr. Walsh gives great advice on avoiding the pitfalls of the publishing industry (and the ones that we writers create in our own heads). The most valuable tidbits I got from it are: write as though you are writing to a stranger (if you're constantly worrying about what your family will think of your story, there's no way it will be honest), revise your book before you try to get it published (even if you have to re-write the whole thing), and take yourself and your work seriously (but not so seriously that you think your writing makes you the King of the Universe).

Sometimes negative feedback is the best feedback you can get about your writing, because it's the only feedback that is going to help you improve it. You have to be willing to step back and experience rejection for what it is--an opportunity to do better.

That said, he ends the book on a positive note, saying that no matter how hard writing and getting published is, it is definitely worth it.

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