78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Get Published - A Review

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

Even though self-publishing has come into its own, I'm always interested in books by  agents and editors. I even read Pat Walsh's book How to Win the World Series of Poker (or Not): An All-American Tale and enjoyed it. This book, I'm not so impressed with.

The main reason is that I don't believe that the writers who might need to read it will, but even if they do, I don't think they'll recognize themselves as needing it.

Even if they should, the "reasons" aren't all that helpful.

For instance:
The number one reason your book will never be published is because you have not written it.

Mr. Waslsh may think this needs to be said (and to his credit, he says it as gently as he can). According to him, he's been approached by aspiring writers who haven't yet written their book. I'm not questioning that. He probably has. How high are the odds that those people haven't picked up a single book about writing? I'd say the odds are high. How high do you think the odds are that they will have picked up this book? My guess is the odds are minuscule. So who is Mr. Walsh writing this book for?

Let's look at a few of his other 78 Reasons, shall we?

#10: You Cannot Tell a Story

#34 You Do Not Understand Advances
#57 You Did Not Research Agents
#74 You Blame the Publishing Industry for Your Lack of Success

This doesn't look like it's aimed at the serious writer at all even though they are the ones who are most likely to get sucked in by the title.

If you think I'm being too harsh, let's look at a few of the 14 Rules why you might get published.

#1 You Wrote a Good Book

Like the other #1 reason above, the is a bit of a no brainer. Not that he tells you how you should know this. Those of us who are serious about what we do understand that no one can, but if you need tho have this "reason" pointed out to you, you need more help than this (or any other) book can give you.

So who is this book for? Well, Mr. Walsh may have thought he was aiming it at the aspiring authors' market, but the only ones I can picture getting anything from it are agents and editors who enjoy being validated by reading their own thoughts put to paper.

Sadly, this is not a book I recommend.