Bluff Your Way In Publishing - Dorothy Stewart

A Spoiler Free Bit About The Book

The title speaks for itself.

My Review

First, of course, this book is dated and I can't believe the publishing industry conducts itself in the exact same way it did back when this was written. Not to mention the popularity of the eBook has changed a lot for publishers and they've had to adapt, even if it is in a small way. So a lot of it I found out-of-date and irrelevant.

I'm going to be brutally honest. I did not like this book. Is that because I have an idealised vision of what publishing's like? I don't know. But what was written in this book must have been, at least some of it, an exaggeration. 

Being told that if you have a certain name you are more likely to get into publishing made me sceptical of the seriousness of this book from the off and I spent all 60 pages of it wondering how serious I was supposed to take it. I was glad it was so short because with each page I became more miserable Everyone in publishing seems to hate everybody else in publishing according to Stewart. Plus, do publishers really not give a damn about authors? What about J.K. Rowling? I bet publishers give a damn about her. I just can't believe that authors mean nothing in the publishing industry. I worked in an editing department for two weeks, the people there cared more than the book suggested.

It's safe to say I was left with an even more depressing view of the publishing industry than I already had. Stewart painted a view of a stuffy, half asleep industry you wouldn't touch with a bargepole. Again, I just can't believe this to be true

Evaluation

Overall 5/10

Would I recommend it? No. Unless you're a publisher with this specific brand of humour I suppose.

Would I look up the author? No. I'm not sure what I was supposed to take from this book.

Bluff Your Way In Publishing was depressing and out-of-date. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have learnt from its pages.

Molly Looby

Author / Ghostwriter / Editor / Blogger / Reviewer / Wrimo / Movellian / ZA Ready

molly.looby@hotmail.com