Difficult to use - Rated 
Like both the other market guides for the UK, this has a range of useful articles and comprehensive listings. It's particularly strong at listing creative writing and journalism courses around the country, and, for some unknown reason, contains information aimed directly at students (links to websites for students and a guide to how to write a dissertation) which is not relevant for most writers. But its biggest failure is its lack of a subject index. This means that the only way to find publishers who produce a particular type of book is to plough your way through the pages and read every entry. Unless you're trying to study writing, you'll be better off with The Writers and Artists Yearbook or The Writers Handbook.
Very poorly written - Rated 
I am extremely disappointed with this book. Today I went to this book to search for three magazines to send article queries to. None of the magazines were listed in this directory. I turned to my Writers' & Artists' Yearbook and voila, they were all in that one.
This book is full of holes. The layout is confusing, it's difficult to know exactly what you're looking at, and even more difficult to find anything you're looking for.
This is a poor imitation of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. I will be using the Writer's Market 2008 as a door-stop, and will be sticking with the real deal. Don't waste your money.
Needs a better proofreader! - Rated
How can you trust a book for writers that talks of a newspaper 'excepting' work from freelancers? (See The Observer newspaper listing if you want to browse the book in a shop.)There are quite a lot of these proofreading errors - possibly why it's churned out so cheaply. I found it very difficult to navigate and find the publishing lists I wanted. It lists the groups alphabetically so you get a list of magazine publishers, followed by music publishers and then newspaper publishers. I'll definitely be sticking to Writers' and Artists'!
brilliant! - Rated 
I bought a copy of this book and have to say I am impressed. It's big, for one, at about 1000 pages. It's packed full too. The price is quite reasonable at 12.99. In another review, someone asked how it stacked up to The Artist's & Writer's Yearbook and gave this one three stars without actually having seen it. That seems like foul play to me. Try reading the book before you actually assign it a rating, hmm?
However - since the question was asked - I own both and must say I prefer this one. I'm not sure how they can afford to do it, but I'm glad they did. As noted, the book is big - about 160 pages larger than The Artist's & Writer's Yearbook and it has many more entries. Very comprehensive as well. Not only does each entry have updated contact info, etc., they also provide insider info, as well as tips for tailoring your work properly for the magazine or book publisher that you're interested in. The book also covers broadcast media, agents, writing organizations, writer's groups, competitions, etc. There's also a lengthy overview of how the publishing industry works (about 100 pages worth of material right there).
Two other big benefits: This book is less expensive than every other market book / writer's handbook I could find AND it has this special web site that you can access for a month that provides all the entries from the book online, in addition to a bunch of others that they couldn't fit into the book. It's a promotional thing, I guess, but you can continue on the web site longer if you want.
Great foreword by Peter Ackroyd by the way. Really very inspiring.
Writers and Artists' Yearbook v Writer's Market UK - Rated 
I haven't yet ordered a copy of this item having just purchased a copy of the 'Writers and Artists' Yearbook'. I wondered if anyone has got both and could comment on their comparability, any useful differences etc.
|
