The Author's Checklist is a handy reference and a glimpse from the agent's and publisher's points of view of manuscripts submitted to them. It has an A-Z format, which while useful, is a little dry. It is a good book to have in your reference library if you are an author. In many areas the information presented is not very specific. In the areas addressing the manuscript itself, there is more useful detail. I found the author's take on filter words, qualifiers and intensifiers enlightening.

This book is packed with tips to help writers avoid common and not so common mistakes that will improve their writing and chances of getting published. The tips are given in short to the point summaries with examples where needed and checklists after each section. The voice is down to earth and makes the advice easy to understand and implement. It covers a really wonderful range from things that are writing centered to things that are presentation centered- which often isn't covered in writing manuals. There are parts geared toward nonfiction as well as well fiction, making this a must have for all writers.

Informative for anyone looking to get their work published and isn't sure where to start. It gives insight on what publishers are looking for and how to best present your work.

This is a helpful, accessible guide for authors who are developing, polishing, and submitting their manuscripts. The author includes industry guidance from her experience as an agent/editor and examples of a query letter and synopsis. Her voice is personable and engaging. I want to know more about her most powerful dream, her animal rescue work in Puerto Rico, and her apparent love for helicopter rides.

The book's title may be misleading. The book is organized alphabetically by topic, with short checklists after each topic, but it isn't an overall checklist for developing or improving your manuscript. Because the author addresses both fiction and non-fiction in each topic section, it is sometimes confusing whether her advice applies to fiction, non-fiction, or both.

Still, this is a useful reference book, and even seasoned writers are likely to come away with a new insight or idea.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the author Elizabeth K. Kracht, publisher New World Library, and Netgalley for the review copy. My ability to view this book has been timely as I've been editing my own manuscript. The hope is to get some good ideas and use them in my own writing journey.

As a first view seeing the topics arranged alphabetically made me think this would be more reference than, say, narrative. It was a bit unexpected (though the title does include the word checklist), but I pressed on. Each of the topics included a simple checklist at the end of each. Further to the reference-style, this is great for an author looking to print off the page and check it against his/her work.

Since this was my first time reading the book, I viewed the pages in sequence. This process was somewhat disjointed given the topics are A to Z, but I soon settled in and tried to be open to the unfolding book (not leaning on the contents to give me prior warning). I couldn't help looking closer at the author's construction of her book while reading her text about these ideas. The alphabetical structure seemed from the outset to be a limiting factor, but it actually worked when reading straight through. It's hard to hold any sort of narrative in this kind of construction, but the topics had some basic flow. I guess it is possible to have something that can be presented page-by-page and also a reference guide.

And, there's limited detail in many of the subjects. Often the author mentions how little time agents have to read manuscripts and I had to wonder if she had little time to expand on some of her ideas. Some really deserved more attention and examples such as "Themes" and "Word Count." The author is representing herself as being a gatekeeper (of sorts) but could offer more commentary on the gate itself.

The conclusion threw me off. When reading up to that point, all the headings made sense, so seeing the heading of "Conclusion," I expected to read about book conclusions. Not so, and this was the book's conclusion. Once I re-oriented and re-read the paragraph, I could continue.

In total, the book great, albeit brief, look into traditional publishing. I left this book wanting more. I don't think I would keep this book as a checklist or personal reference, so that style may not have best suited its layout. There were some very helpful jumping off points into other books.

A handy resource for the emerging author. Because of the breadth of information she is trying to provide, it is not overly detailed. I think the main issue with the book is the way it's presented: alphabetical order. It would have been better told via chronological order with an index or detailed table of contents. A new author might struggle with the order in which they should do these things and may completely miss something they could have used at an earlier moment.

Still an informative book, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in publishing

A large array of no-nonsense information, but very little that can't be found in other places. Although it's subtitled "An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript" a lot of the information is only useful after the manuscript is done and submitted. The choice to arrange the book alphabetically rather than by stage of manuscript preparation was an odd one. Reading it straight through leaves a disjointed feeling, but you'd have to know the specific thing you're looking for to find it by name. If I'm interested enough in a topic to look it up by name, I'd read a book on that topic, not a 1- or 2-page summary that can't provide more than an overview.

As a casual aspiring writer I can never resist a reference book on this subject. This book is an excellent tool and the organization and breadth of this work is superior to many similar books out there. It would make a nice gift for any budding author and should easily find a place on many of our shelves.

Over the years I have read many, many books on creative writing, writing techniques and editing and The Author's checklist is a very useful addition to the wealth of books available. I am thinking of buying myself a physical copy for my bookshelf.

I will do a longer review over on my blog when I get the time.

Great book. Very useful. Lots of helpful tips all in an easy format to read and learn from.

This book would be great for new authors. I've written and published a few manuscripts, and I'm always looking for new ways to improve my writing, so I didn't really feel like this book's target audience. However, it's got a lot of useful information for the burgeoning writer.

This was a useful book for me as an aspiring writer looking to make sure I'm covering the important elements of building a writing career. Would especially recommend to those who are just starting out in their writing careers and hoping to strengthen them.

With a wonderful forward by John Grogan, this book should be on every writers shelf. On Writing by Stephen King is much adored by authors, however, The Author's Checklist is just that, a check list (written in a friendly voice) to produce the best writing possible out of the writer. So appreciate the galley from Netgalley. New writer or seasoned writer, all can benefit from The Author's Checklist.

"The Author's Checklist" is a useful resource for writers who have completed their manuscript and are at the point of querying agents and editors. Rather than offering advice on developing the craft, this is a collection of checklists authors can refer back to when polishing their manuscripts. The contents are listed in alphabetical order, which makes it easy to refer back to a specific topic, and range from marketing and promotion to proofreading and pitching. Examples of query letters and synopsis are also provided. While the book is lacking in details in certain sections, and is often geared more towards non-fiction proposals, it will help an author to look at their work objectively, to identify weaknesses and polish their manuscript (whether fiction or non-fiction) for publication.

Excellent resource for writers at any level, but especially those polishing their first book for submissions.

If you are writing a book or have any desire to write one, this book provides a comprehensive guide for every single detail you need to take into consideration from the drafting process through to publication. Kracht gives you tips on research that needs to be done, world-building, how to get the proper narrative arc in each chapter, how to physically structure your book, and the actual publishing process including dealing with rejections. Her book is broken down using an alphabetical list of topics, so if you need help with a specific area, you can jump right to that section and find what you need. This should be on the bookshelf of every potential author out there. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

READ THIS BOOK before you ever send a single query to an agent, or pitch a publisher at a conference. Kracht's knowledge of the publishing industry and passion for her clients is clear-- she wants to help aspiring authors avoid the common mistakes that get books rejected. The book is organized alphabetically by topic (Author Platform, Tension, Voice, Word Count, etc) rather than chronologically, which makes the initial read-through jump around a bit -- but will likely serve the aspiring author best as they refer to THE AUTHOR'S CHECKLIST throughout the writing, submission, and publishing process. Kracht's perspective on the thin line between what gets an author accepted or rejected comes from her years of experience as a literary agent. THE AUTHOR'S CHECKLIST is a reference that belongs on every writer's bookshelf.

--Lisa Daily, BESTSELLING AUTHOR WRITING COACH

This is a decent read for the beginning writer. I found that a lot of the information is mundane and the writers voice isn't engaging. Not entertaining, but okay as far as general information goes. A decent book for the beginning writer.

It wasn't really what I thought it would be. I was expecting editing advise from an industry professional but really it was just a glossary of writing terminology. This would be great for newbies who have never written (and likely never even read a book, considering this book tries to explain what a synopsis is), but for someone already in the editing process, this is pretty obsolete.

The examples of particular writing principles are all of obscure books. It would have made more sense to use examples from mega-popular books, that even if you haven't read it, you've heard of it. That way the examples would have been more relevant and relatable.

Though there is a lot of helpful information in here, I do feel there is some potentially harmful advice for newbie writers who won't know any better. Like 'try to only use five adverbs per manuscript'. What does that even mean? Does this apply to manuscripts of 50k words or 100k words? What about dialogue? Real people don't speak in prose, real people use adverbs. Seriously, we do. So does that mean we must sacrifice organic dialogue for the sake of claiming some pretentious goal of having no adverbs at all?
I agree with her that an overuse of adverbs is a sign of weak prose, but to use only five adverbs per manuscript is near impossible. I wonder if she's ever written a full-length manuscript between 80k -100k (the recommended length for a debut), and if so, I'd love to see her do it without adverbs.
I did a kindle search for words ending in 'ly'. There's 506. That's not including common adverbs.
Yes, I know it's a non-fiction advice book and the author isn't trying to write perfect prose, and I appreciate that.
But fiction or nonfiction, practice what you preach.
If you've ever used software like Hemingway Editor, then you know exactly how many adverbs you can get away with using, and where to cut them.

The thing is, this book is supposed to be for writers in the editing phase, but it isn't applicable to its intended audience. If you've written a whole book and don't know what world-building is, or pacing, or even character development, then you might want to take another look at your manuscript, and maybe read this book for an explanation.
My point is, most writers already know all this stuff. This is the very basic principles of writing craft. Writers should know all of this before they start writing, and certainly before they start querying.
There's really nothing here that can't be found in a quick (and free) Google search.

This books might be invaluable to someone who's never written before and who's done no previous research, and I hope those people can find value within this book. But for me, unfortunately, I found little.

Thank you Netgalley for an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Author’s Checklist: An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript by Elizabeth K. Kracht

As an aspiring author, I am well aware that there are plenty of guidebooks available on the writing process, not to mention articles and websites devoted to this subject matter. What I appreciate about this book is that it has condensed this information into a series of convenient chunks.

I should point out that this book has slightly more guidance for fiction manuscripts, but there is useful information for nonfiction authors as well. The material is organized alphabetically and covers everything from “dreams” to “punctuation” to “query letter” and even dealing with “rejection”

Each entry is relatively short; Kracht summarizes the point quickly, uses concrete examples, and then concludes with a checklist for authors to use when evaluating whether their manuscript is ready for the next step.
The two appendices at the end contain examples of query letters for fiction and nonfiction and a synopsis for a fiction book.

I would recommend The Author’s Checklist. This is a very useful guide. I enjoyed reading it and I know that as I get a little further in the process of preparing my manuscript for querying, I will go through the book to make sure everything is in order. I received a digital copy of this book, and perhaps a paper copy would have been easier to thumb through, but I do want to point out that I can use the “Go To” feature on my Kindle to access each of the different entries without having to flip through the alphabetical list.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley/the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Author's Checklist: An Agent's Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript by Elizabeth K. Kracht is a must-have resource for authors, editors, and anyone interested in the literary and publishing field. Elizabeth Kracht provides invaluable resources for writers who are submitting their work to an agent or publisher. Still, the information provided can apply to any author because it focuses on what makes for a good book.

The book is formatted into an A-to-Z list and provides links and resources to explore sections further. It is a practical and easy-to-use guide with excellent examples and information to help authors looking to get traditionally published.

It is a valuable tool and resource for any author who wants to improve their craft. A great resource to have on hand and refer back to during the writing and editing process.

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