The Street-Smart Writer Review
“We want to believe that people have good intentions.”
If you are not familiar with Jenna Glatzer then you really need this book because you are obviously not as internet/writer savvy as you need to be. Jenna was the creator of AbsoluteWrite.com, a writer friendly site. She is also the author of over fifteen books including Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer and one of my favourites, Outwitting Writer’s Block. Not only does she write for writers but she has written the authorized biography for Celine Dion: For Keeps. This working writer has a knack for sharing her experience with others. In The Street-Smart Writer she has joined forces with Daniel Steven, a writer and publishing lawyer.
This is definitely a must-have guide for writers, especially the writer who dabbles in many areas. It is not only about what to avoid but doing it better. The Street-Smart Writer is divided into 17 chapters with an appendix of additional forms tacked on the end. Chapter breakdown: 
1 – Agents & Managers (spotting sharks)
2 – Agents & Managers (finding a good one)
3 – Paying to Publish (vanity and subsidy presses)
4 – What to do if you’ve been screwed
5 – Trouble Spots in Book Contracts
6 – After Publication Rip-offs for Book Authors
7 – Vanity Poetry Contests
8 – Deceptive Contests for Novelists, Short Story Writers, Screen writers & others
9 – Crash Course in Copyright
10 – Special Screw-over for Screenwriters
11 – Monstrous Magazines & E-zines
12 – Dealing with Deadbeats
13 – Costly Courses & Shady Seminars
14 – How to Know When They’re really using You
15 – Spotting False Credentials
16 – Protecting Yourself from Threats & Lawsuits
17 – “They Stole My Idea!” and other things not to worry about.
One of the things I appreciated about the Street-Smart Writer was its ability to explain instead of tell. Like the “big bucks” you make at vanity presses: “Let’s say you managed to sell a hundred copies through bookstores. How much would you earn on a 250-page paperback book printed as cheaply as possible with a retail price of $20? About $240. Which means if you paid a print-on-demand company to publish your book and didn’t even spend a dime to have it edited or promoted, you still wouldn’t even have recouped your initial investment, let alone made any profit from your hard work.” To finish off Street-Smart provides a commercial publisher arrangement for you to compare. An eye opener for anyone thinking they can make big(ger) bucks by doing it themselves.
Many sample letters appear throughout and to help you decipher any forms the appendix provides examples of: Literary Agent Agreement, Interview Release, Permissions Agreement, Contributors Agreement, Trade Publishing Agreement, Film Option & Literary Purchase Agreement. These are not meant to be substitute agreements but to give you some background information when you are cool and collected because you know your stomach is going to be in knots when the real thing comes.
There is so much in this book for the eclectic writer. But any writer can learn from all these areas and apply it to their own work. Jenna Glatzer’s usual comedic style, logic and blunt truth delivers the cold hard facts about the writing world. In layman’s terms she explains away the idiots of the industry’s scam tactics by teaching readers how to read between the lines. It is not meant to be a scare tactic but to make you an informed writer and it accomplishes its task.
