Book Review

Write to Sell

by Ruth Wucherer
Published by R&E Publishers 1988

Reviewed by Dalya Goldberger

To be successful financially, writers must learn to become astute sales and public relations campaigners. Write to Sell by Ruth Wucherer aims to educate writers about the details involved in selling non-fiction articles, but falls a few feet short of its goal. Nevertheless, it does contain some useful advice.

In Part I, "Things a Nonfiction Writer Should Know", Wucherer introduces first-time freelance writers to 75 magazine publishing terms they will need to know in order to successfully pitch their stories to magazine editors. Two notable terms for novice freelancers are kill fee, which is a portion of the agreed-upon fee for an article that is subsequently cancelled, and simultaneous submission, which means to submit one article to several magazines at the same time.

Descriptions of the terms First Serial Rights, Simultaneous Rights, and All Rights contribute to the reservoir of essential knowledge anyone intending to sell their writing must possess. Some magazines, explains Wucherer, insist on purchasing All Rights to an article because of the high prices they pay for material. In such cases, an author forfeits the right to use his/her material in its present form anywhere else. Wucherer urges writers to keep as many rights to their work as possible; relinquishing All Rights to a magazine means an article may be published anywhere without the author's permission and without any further payment to the author.

Part II entitled "Techniques", emphasizes the "nuts and bolts" of developing, writing, and preparing an article, and is also what draws attention to the book's deficiencies. While Wucherer supplies examples of query letters, interview techniques, and many of their winning ingredients, the recommended waiting period before following up with an editor (one month) is unrealistic. In that amount of time, an editor may have forgotten about or lost your article, or has filled the spot with someone else's work of equal value. A passive, wait-and-see approach is impractical in a world that enables instant access to information by phone, fax, or computer.

Wucherer reminds us that even the superficial aspects of one's writing require attention; it is imperative that one's work is clean and error-free. This is a valid point, as obvious mistakes are the ones that most often go unnoticed. The inadvertent omission of Chapter IX from the Table of Contents of Write to Sell, and the resulting confusion in page numbering is one such mistake that escaped careful review.

The elusive Chapter IX does, however, provide some valuable information. Recognizing that photographs help sell stories, Wucherer expands our non-fiction selling vocabulary with a list of photographic terms. Of special note is model release, which is a contract signed by the subject of a photograph that gives the photographer permission to use the photo for a specific purpose.

In Part III, "Markets", Wucherer compiles a list of over 150 magazines in the United States. A variety of information is supplied under each magazine such as address, publication type (weekly, monthly, etc.), subject matter, word length, magazine subsection titles, and qualities that various editors look for in an article. Given the publication date of this book, it would be wise to verify that the magazine still exists before mailing any queries.

Write to Sell is useful as a quick reference for publishing and photography vocabulary, and as a source from which to extract tips on writing and selling non-fiction articles. While it offers relevant hints and information, some of the book's deficiencies distract the reader. Notably, the conspicuous absence of Chapter IX, the use of roman numerals to indicate both section divisions and chapters, the lack of parallel chapter structures, and the author's sometimes colloquial writing style raise questions about Wucherer's expertise.