Binding: Magazine
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10
Format: Magazine Subscription
Issues Per Year: 6
Label: F&W Publications
Magazine Type: Consumer magazine
Manufacturer: F&W Publications
Number Of Issues: 6
Publisher: F&W Publications
Studio: F&W Publications
Subscription Length: 365

WRITER'S DIGEST is the #1 magazine for writers looking to improve their skills and get published. Our features and columns offer specific advice on writing and selling fiction and nonfiction books, stories, plays, magazine and newspaper articles, scripts and more. We provide information that helps writers succeed as they pursue their passion, through hands-on techniques from top authors, insider tips on working with agents and editors, listings of hot markets for their work, and news about the writing world. Advice from industry experts and inspiring stories from successful writers living the dream round out the package, month after month.

Customer Rating:
Summary: This magazine makes a nice gift for the hobbyist
Comment: This magazine makes a nice gift subscription for friends or family who enjoy writing for a hobby. Each issue comes with 3-4 large features or how-to articles. These articles focus on different aspects of the writing life, including development, marketing and interviews with published authors, agents and editors of publishing houses.

As other reviewers mentioned, most of the writing topics in this magazine and similar resources can be found online. That doesn't mean you should not buy a subscription as a gift.

The magazine is perfect for an older person who is not comfortable with computers or someone who doesn't have access to a high-speed Internet service. The monthly assortment of articles helps to encourage and stimulate a beginning writer. There are gems for everyone that can be found in a one-year subscription to Writer's Digest.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not rating Writer's Digest, just Amazon's subscription scheme
Comment: My beef is with Amazon's advertising "up to 75% off" for subscriptions. I've checked the rates for VQR, Poetry, Writer's Digest, and Poets & writers, and I'm four for four: Amazon's rates are either exactly the same as those posted on these journals' websites, or (in the case of Writer's Digest and P&W) more expensive. It's nice, I guess, that Amazon is providing more exposure for these journals; nonetheless, for them to claim they're offering a discount, while not exactly a lie (since they're offering a discount over the per-copy price), is deceiving, as they don't seem to be offering a cheaper rate than that already offered by the journals. Caveat, as always, emptor.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource!
Comment: Writer's Digest publishes hands-on, practical articles for writers. Their interviews contain smart tidbits that I can apply quickly, and they don't write down to readers. I like the brevity of their articles too -- busy writers can read an article in five minutes or less. That's my style.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Filled with information for writers.
Comment: I truly enjoy reading Writers's Digest. It gives me tons of helpful advice about writing, publshing and marketing. I enjoy the writing contests and reading the articles from famous authors. A subcription makes a great gift for the writers in your life.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Was wonderful... once.
Comment: 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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