The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile

This book would be great for beginners, but for someone who has already read many 'how-to' books, there was really no new advice. It was interesting to read how agents think, but beyond that it was a lesson for new writers, citing mistakes that a seasoned writer would never make.

Excellent book! Good review of things that can be done to tighten up your writing and simply make you a better writer.

This book is adequately named. If you follow the instructions given, it will keep you out of the rejection file at least 90% of the time and that is pretty good odds. I am a published author and getting my work into a publisher and not getting a rejection is important. I found this book chocked full of information that will be useful to anyone who has the desire to see their work in print. As a reference book, there is none I've found that can compare. I highly recommend this book and gurantee it to be money well spent for the knowledge gained.

The more you know the better your chances are. A lot of knowledge in a little book. Vegas Hustler

I purchased this book months ago and went through the chapters. Yes, they do provide good insight on different areas of writing such as Style, Characterization, Progression, Dialogue, etc. However, I would say that about 95% of the stuff this book told me was stuff that I already knew just from reading so many books (and I'm not talking about writing guides...I'm talking fiction novels). If you're an avid reader, you naturally pick the proper technicalities of proper writing. It starts to become natural to you. So basically everything THE FIRST FIVE PAGES told me, I had already picked up just from reading novels. This is a good book for those who are trying out writing for the first time and may not read as often. However, reading lots of books is a learning tool in itself.