I came upon this book when I joined the Entertainment & Media Practice of a big-5 consulting firm. It was recommended to me as a good quick backgrounder on the business side of publishing, and I have recommended it to many, many people since. It was extremely useful when I found my self on my first project at a publishing company with no prior book publishing experience. The part that I found particularly useful was a chapter that presented a Contract for Trade Book Publication, with running commentary on key points...and as you would hope, the length of the comments exceed the text of the contract!

The edition that I have is 1992, which may be the last edition, as that's what's listed here on amazon.com. Of course, there are many new topics that an author should be considering that weren't on people's screens at the time that this book was written....such as electronic books, and the implications of print-on-demand to the definition of a book being "in print". Like any text, you should look at it as a starting point, and then search more current trade pubs and the net to get current.

Still, it's a very enjoyable, clearly written and informative book...well worth finding.

(And Ray, if you read this, you should consider updating the book and going print-on-demand with it if your publisher doesn't want to do a new edition....I think the Author's Guild can facilitate that process...though I doubt i need to tell you that!)

For the price, it's worth picking up. There was some pretty helpful information, particularly the 30/70 rule and some ideas on getting seller financing.

The most disappointing part to me was getting excited about the no-qualifying, assumable loans discussed in the first few chapters. The more I read, the more I realized that this was relevant in 1993 (when the book was published). Today, at least in the Chicago suburbs, there are few to zero homes on the market that meet these conditions.

That part aside, I learned some pretty useful things that will help me as I move towards buying a home with damaged credit. But it's not a miracle cure or a guaranteed thing.

Before reading this book, I knew nothing about buying a house, especially without qualifying for a mortgage. But this book showed me the way, it can do the same for you!

Having read numerous books with similar titles, I now know that I could have stopped reading after 'No Credit Required'. It covers all the bases, and it leaves out the 'motivational filler' that you need to flip through in the other books. I was surprised that the book costing 1/3 the price of the other titles turned out to be the most informative! While you may glean an additional speck of knowledge or two from similar books, "No Credit Required' is definitely the place to start for first-time homebuyers.

It's a shame that this book is out of print, because it tells the story of one man's adventures in a unique time and place in a way that is less successfully done in other such books. Mungo was there at the creation, and he (usually) doesn't gloss over the failings of the hippies' original vision. The book is witty and opinionated, well-written and amusing - and if you're interested in the 1960s you should seek out copies in your nearby library or other such repository.

Mungo's life during those intense years covered in the book (which is circa 1965 through about 1971) traced nearly the entire stereotpical path of the 1960s hippie: from the Haight to political action in Washington and elsewhere (as a member of the Liberation News Service), to a comically unsuccessful stand as a back-to-the-lander communitarian, to a wandering journey to the 'sources of enlightenment' in Asia. The book shows just how it was possible to become entirely burnt out with innovation in just a six or seven year period, and illustrates well the trajectory of the 1960s, from ideal to disillusion to acceptance.

And it's well-written.

While this book may be fit for an adult audience, it is certainly inappropriate for "young adults." The book describes Liberace's sex life in disgusting detail, such as his use of amyl nitrate to maintain arousal and his particular addiction to "kinky" and "three-way sex." This is not something that 12- and 13-year-olds should be reading.

I bought this book on a whim in [at a] bookstore. I want my money back. It is padded with stock pictures, stories based on rumor that end abruptly, and just about every person mentioned in the book is either gay or suspected of being gay according to the author. What makes that part laughable is the author apparently is gay as well, bragging about his own week of debauchery at a P.S. resort. If the people in the book were alive they would have a great class action suit against Mungo. If Mungo had any balls he'd take on people that could actually fight back. One of the worst pieces of self serving trash ever published. This book deserves a no star rating, but [Amazon.com] doesn't provide for one.