Publishers Lunch

Publishers Lunch is e-newsletter focusing on the book publishing business. It's associated with Publishers Marketplace, which offers an array of interesting services for $20 a month. Occasionally there are free weeklong trials or "two months for the price of one" deals.

The service is geared to publishers and agents, but I find it useful as a writer in a few ways. On a day-to-day basis, I don't need more than the info listed in the free newsletter--but the abbreviated lists of deals made (full list in the premium version) offer clues about what publishers are buying. I learn when someone starts a new imprint that might be interested in narrative nonfiction. I've even gotten article ideas from the deal list: For example, a proposal sold about why homework being a waste of time. I definitely want to talk to that author for a piece for a parenting magazine.

On occasion I've plunked down $20 for a month (and that's one of the beauties of the service--you can subscribe month-to-month): to research agents appropriate for a book I was editing (I looked up agents for authors already published in the same genre); to see if a proposal had been sold recently on a topic I'm interested in writing about; and to browse through the offerings (just because I'm danged curious). (Do you think I overuse parenthetical comments?)

Not every agent is listed, not every deal is included, but Publisher's Marketplace definitely has made a name for itself in the book world, so there's lots of info here.

While anyone may view members' Web pages and rights postings, all other services are available only to paying members.

If you subscribe to Publishers Marketplace, you get a longer, more informative version of Publishers Lunch daily, and you can do the following:

• Access new deals daily; opt to receive a daily deal e-mail; and search the deal database containing thousands of transactions.
• Search the Who Represents database of authors and agents.
• Search the contact database of thousands of industry contacts.
• Create your own Publishers Marketplace Web page with contact information, career highlights, personnel, and proposals -- and even a checkbox if you're looking for an agent.
• Post rights news and offerings, where agents, editors, and other licensees can view your projects.
• Use the track books page to follow your titles' rankings at Amazon and BN.com, as well as cross-check automatically against 12 bestseller lists.
• Monitor and analyze bestseller movement from around the country easily through our analytical charts that identify Unique Bestsellers and Consensus Bestsellers, and research the bestseller history of any title.
• Use the book review index to view extracts from the day's book reviews from over 60 newspapers and magazines (complete with hyperlinks to the full text reviews), and search the book review database by author, title, publisher, review source, date range, and more.

category: resources