Writer's Market FAQ's: Fast answers about getting published and the business of writing

"There are a lot of books about writing," says Peter Rubie in Writer's Market FAQs, but few address "the metamorphosing business of publishing." Being a successful writer, Rubie advises, has as much to do with understanding marketing and sales and audience as it does with writing well. That's no surprise to anyone who's been in the business a day or two, but it might well shock the supernovice. Newly aspiring book authors have much to glean from Writer's Market FAQs, in which Rubie, an agent as well as an author, provides questions and answers to nearly 300 questions about publishing. Rubie divides his questions into 10 categories, including agents, editors, and other publishing people; marketing your work; how your manuscript becomes a book; reading the contract; and e-publishing and other routes. With terrific lay translations of typical contract terms and the Association of Authors' Representatives Code of Ethics. --Jane Steinberg