CFBA Book Tour: Christian Writer’s Market Guide

This week, we had a last minute change, and we’re touring a rare nonfiction book, the Christian Writer’s Market Guide. My copy has yet to arrive, but it sounds like a good resource has gotten even better. The only real problem with this guide is one they all have, by the time they go to press, half the information is out of date. The guide is still helpful, and the CD sounds especially promising, but it’s a good idea to subscribe to the website for uptodate listings if you can, and definitely be sure to visit publisher/agent websites and check their guidelines before querying.

The main CFBA blog had the following on this great resource:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sally E. Stuart is the author of thirty-four books and has sold more than one thousand articles and columns. Her long-term involvement with the Christian Writers’ Market Guide as well as her marketing columns for the Christian Communicator, Oregon Christian Writers, and The Advanced Christian Writer, make her a sought-after speaker and a leading authority on Christian markets and the business of writing. Stuart is the mother of three and grandmother of eight.

ABOUT THE BOOK

For more than twenty years, the Christian Writers’ Market Guide has offered indispensable help to Christian writers. This year, for the first time, this valuable resource comes with a CD-ROM of the full text, so you can search with ease for topics, publishers, and other specific names.

The 2007 edition also includes up-to-date listings of more than 1,200 markets for books, articles, stories, poetry, and greeting cards, including information on forty new book publishers, eighty-three new periodicals, and thirty-four new literary agents. Perfect for writers in every phase, this is the resource to get noticed–and get published.

It contains listings for: 695 periodicals, 228 poetry markets, 355 book publishers, 133 online publications, 29 print-on-demand publishers, 1185 markets for the written word, 321 photography markets, 31 e-book publishers, 122 foriegn markets, 112 literary agents,and 59 newspapers.

It also gives you comprehensive lists of contests, writers groups and conferences, search engines, pay rates and submission guidelines, editorial services and websites.

Christian Writers’ Market Guide is a “must have’ for any serious Christian writer that is looking to get published!

Update: My copy finally arived, and it’s definitely a useful resource over all, but if you’re short on cash, you could use the last year’s edition, since you’ll have to check the latest writer’s guidelines from the publisher’s website regardless as books like this are already out of date by the time they go to print. The CD was especially a disappointment. Rather than cool database software, it’s essentially the proofs of the book’s manuscript in PDF and word doc format and about as searchable as any PDF or word document.

Over all, it’s the same old same old, just a year less out of date and repackaged to look like you’re getting something exciting and new. Until closer examination, that is.