2006 Poets Market guide

for something that cost 25 bucks for information you can easily find on the internet is crazy. 20 years ago before the internet this was absolute Gold. but now all you got to do is write Poetry publishing links in your browser. and presto, several links to all the Presses magazines your heart desires. I mean literally all of them are there.

I was under the impression that what made this book worth getting is the list of Literary Agents that publish poetry. Well I was thinking their information was exclusively private and this book was the ticket to find these people and contact them. Well I was wrong. Literary Agents are not looking for Poets. maybe a long time ago but not now. or maybe never. You'd think mentioning that fact would be important. I was under the impression that Agents don't have websites because they don't want to be swamped with really bad manuscripts. I thought that was the premise of this book. Call me stupid call me naive but thats what I read as to what literary agency listings were for. but Now I learned Poetry is not part of the criteria. when I purchased this book last February. In defense of the book it never claimed what I am ranting about now. but I remember when there was time in writers market guides listed agents looking for almost everything every genre of literary. Again that was ages ago. But still the information in this book is available on the internet. its a big bulky book but filled with lots of filler with tips by poets but still I found very little information.

Next problem which is small I guess. but there are listings of publishers but are not accepting stuff until 2007 which is kind of silly if you ask me. and then there are issues of dead links or publishing companies who are now defunct or companies who are not accepting manuscripts unless you were invited. If you have that kind of privledge of being that snooty then don't advertise because its a waste of space. if your not ready to publish don't advertise.

also most of the submissions guidelines are exclusively old fashioned submitting through Postal
which in this day and Age is Archaic. You may question my point but as I stated earlier I found lots of links to publishers and I found plenty of presses magazines who accept the modern way of email.

then there is the ever annoying issue of Chabook contests which I don't understand why you have a seperate section to that when its already written in the listings.

I found only a handful of companies in this book that I would be interested in submitting too. and I found literally hundreds on the net because they all have websites now.
This book is a waiste of your dough, you could be saving that money for submission fees or postal submissions if you prefer the old fashion way?

$25 dollars is a lot of money for information thats spread around and under your nose. thats like Stephen King publishing a book but you find chapters here and there in your mail box in your yard in your sock drawer... all for free.

here is the weirdest of all.
City Lights Press, which is still going. which is a legend, and its not listed in the damn Book.

Why?. keep that in mind when you check the guide out.

I found the tips almost silly, they show you how to write a query letter both postal and through email which at first I thought was very cool. but if you read what these people are looking for and they say. "Don't send us a Generic query, show us your personality." So I did an experiment I emailed some of them the generic email almost word for word and all of them never responded to an appropriate generic query letter. Next I wrote them a basic letter to companies I found on the internet saying I have a manuscript of poems and can I send a copy? out the several hundreds I emailed I'd say a hundred said yes. where as Zero of the companies said no or none even responded to my query using the suggested Query letter which is sampled in the 2006 writers market guide.

Come 2007 I'm not going to be that book again. I mivght just pay postage for submiting a manuscript hopely My manuscript of short stories will be finished by then.

Whats sad is I feel squeezed out from writing poems because nobody is looking for it. I know there are some bad ones out there, and maybe mine is shit too but damn. lets bring it back for crying out loud.