NEW MARKET GUIDE FEATURES

Each year as I prepare a new manuscript for the market guide, I am on a constant lookout for new features that will help make the guide even more useful. This year I was sure that after twenty-five years I had exhausted every possibility for finding something new to add—but I was wrong.
One thing you will find in the book publisher listing is that the royalty and advance information is highlighted to make it easier to spot. Likewise in the periodical listings, you will find the payment information highlighted. In working with the listings, I found such highlighting made it easier to compare listings within a category and pick the most appealing one.
The new feature I’m most excited about has to do with the writer’s guidelines. From personal experience—as well as from complaints I get from writers—I’m well aware that although a good number of publisher have their guidelines available on their Website—they are often hard or impossible to find. Since I typically check every Website for publishers listed in the guide, it occurred to me that once I found them myself, I could share that information with you. For that reason you will find instructions for finding their guidelines in each listing. You won’t find those instruction in every listing—even those that claim they are on the site—because I wasn’t able to find them. I’ll keep looking and let you know if I discover any additional information. My hope is that by having this help you will be more likely to find and study those guidelines before submitting. I can’t stress enough how important that is in selling your work.