Writer's Digest (1-year)

If you are a new writer, this is one publication well worth the investment.

I started out, back in my college years, reading back issues in the library. then I got my own subscription, and that probably dates back to maybe 1978-79. I may have missed a year here or there, but I've enjoyed Writer's Digest (WD) for 20 plus years. Becoming a writer can be a daunting process with plenty of moments when you are ready to give up.

If you're a subscriber to WD, then every month you get fresh ideas, techniques, tips and inspiration as well as plenty of leads on fresh markets where you can send your freelance writing, both fiction and non-fiction. It helped me to develop to confidence, skills and motivation to go on to sell articles to local Philly publications, then OMNI, Success, Family Health, the National Enquirer (medical and science, no gossip) and eventually, even wrote a cover article for.... you guessed it... Writer's Digest.

Okay, so I have some bias. But it was this publication that gave me so much motivation. If you are getting started, or want to give a gift to someone who has shown potential or interest in being a Writer, this is a great publication.

I don't think that most experienced writers will have read this far into this review because they all know about Writer's Digest. Yes they do have plenty of advertising. That's usually a sign of a strong publication. The one thing I'd like to see more of is openness to more freelance contributions, since recently, they've moved towards depending for a larger percentage of their content being provided by regular columnists. Since freelancing is so much a part of the entry process for writers, it would make sense for a publication for writers to walk the talk and support freelancers. On the other hand, WD has been around a long time and any business has a right to try out different strategies for success. I imagine the columnist approach allows for a more reliable and homogeneous content.

Writer's Digest puts out a lot of great resources for writers. The magazine ain't one of them, however.

For starters about half of the magazine is ads mostly for other Writer's Digest products. One you get past paying $19.95 a year for what's essentially a brochure, you'll notice that most of the articles don't apply to you. Most writers stick to one genre, yet the magazine focuses on all aspects of writing fiction, poetry, business writing, editing, non-fiction, etc. If you're working on a biography of J. Edgar Hoover, do you need to look at an article on poetry in the stlye of ee cummings? I'll take "no" for $600, Alex.

So, now you're down to about 10 pages that might be relevant. Well, let's start chipping away at that:

The letters about grammar questions are a waste: if you have a question about affect versus effect, would you write to a magazine and wait a month or two or would you pick up your style guide and have an answer in less time than it took for you to read this sentence? Thought so. (Furthermore the idea that someone would write to a magazine with a question like that is so incredulous one has to wonder if the questions aren't just submitted by staff members in an attempt to fill space, like I used to do when I was the news editor at my college paper.)

Writer's Digest does review software and other technology that might be useful to writers. My favorite was when it reviewed Microsoft Word. Thanks I'm sure most readers had no idea about the monopolistic word-processing program. To be fair, some of the reviews are useful, although you can get better information just by looking up the product on Amazon.com and reading the reviews there.

If you're going to Writer's Digest for market information, you'd be better served elsewhere: the annual Writer's Market publication has all the markets and is more thorough, whilst the Writer's Market website has all that information and is up-to-date. Your money would be better spent on those two products.

About the only articles I have found useful are the profiles on authors and how they have succeeded. There you have it: two or three pages an issue that are useful.

If you're trying to get your work published, Writer's Digest has several other products that are a better investment than its magazine: go with the annual Writer's Market book, the website, and pick up a style manual of your choosing (Chicago is the best). Don't waste your money on this magazine.

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Years ago, WD was required reading. That was before the big "everyone in the world should write a book" fad. WD, likely in an attempt to cash in on that fad (and stay alive in the internet era) has switched formats. Most articles are only a few pages long, and are fluff at that. Half of the magazine is either white space or filled with oversized clip art. My advice--pick up something useful (like StoryView by Screenplay Systems, NovelPro by NovelCode or BookWriter by Yaddu Digital [no I'm not affiliated with any of these groups]).

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The main target audience of Writer's Digest appears to be freelance writers. Most of the authors are freelance magazine article writers who have finally `made it', and that is what they write about. There are a few short articles about writing (usually written by the same people each month), but that is not the main focus of the magazine. A large portion of the articles are about technical topics related to publishing, and not writing. This magazine is not for people who want to learn about writing; it's more for people who want to learn about how to sell their writing. The advertisements in the back of the magazine are so shady that Writer's Digest actually has to put a disclaimer on each page (think results are not typical in the lose 100 pounds in ten minutes infomercial), and I now get `if you can write a letter like this one, you could make a million dollars a year' junk mail as well. The best part is the writing calendar with writing prompts for each day. This is a great resource for writing exercises and generating story ideas. However, it can be accessed for free from their website.

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I subscribed to this magazine first in high school, and I adored it. I mean, adored. I looked forward to nothing like its arrival. I even won one of their monthly contests, once.

That was then, this is now. They dropped it to bimonthly with no fanfare that I ever saw, and the price is still identical. But the big thing is that Writer's Digest is now one big shill for the "self-publishing" industry, with the better part of the ads for shady operations happy to take several thousand dollars of your money to put your name on the cover. And the magazine itself has shifted accordingly. Articles continually laud self-publishing as a wonderful option and talk about it like it's a writer's dream... never mind that many of the publishers they take money from have never had a commercially successful author and never will.

The joys of the past are gone. The monthly contests now have no prizes, that I've been able to see. The neat little articles on intellectual property accompanied by ads admonishing us that Xerox and Rollerblade are proper nouns are gone. The interviews are now insipid and most of the articles read like they were hacked together in an afternoon with information that could be easily found online.

Skip Writer's Digest. Go find your RSS reader of choice, subscribe to some good blogs--Writer Beware, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, some of the agent blogs. You'll get far better information with far fewer ads, and for free.

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