Book Review - Publish This Book by Stephen Markley

While searching the Internet for publishers, I recently stumbled upon an interesting book promotion by SourceBooks in Naperville, Illinois. Their promotion is for a book entitled, "Publish This Book" by Stephen Markley. They are offering a free critique for up to 5000 words of a manuscript when you purchase the book. I thought it would be worth the $10 (after the 35% discount) to purchase the book which appeared to address a topic of interest for me while meeting the promotional requirements allowing me to submit a portion of my manuscript for a fiction novel. So, I bought the book and obtained the required proof of purchase.

I looked at the cover art for Markley's book and I chuckled as it shows a young man holding what appears to be a broken piece of sheetrock with the title of the book, "PUBLISH THIS BOOK", along with the pitch line, "THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUE STORY OF HOW I WROTE, SOLD, AND PUBLISHED THIS VERY BOOK". The young man has torn pieces of paper taped to his jeans with footnotes. His face is obscured by an adequately sized red label with "A Premature Memoir" written on it. I can appreciate good cover design, so I was immediately intrigued enough to give it a few minutes of my time. After all, I paid for the book so I thought I might as well give it a chance.

I began reading this interesting concept book with every intention of putting it down as soon as I reached a point of waning interest. It didn't happen. I found the book interesting, irreverently funny and candid.