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Writing and Publishing, Part 43:
Becoming your own publisher:
Marketing:
Book Reviewers:
Let us assume that you have created a very good book which is
worthy of being reviewed. Now, how can you get the reviewers to
do their job? A book reviewer's job is to find books of merit
and review them for his readers, Right? Well, let's think about
that. What is his real job? Like anyone else who is employed,
his real job is to satisfy his employer. In a major newspaper,
that means filling column inches with words which won't cause
a problem for the paper. He must meet his deadline for every issue
with a certain number of column inches.
Ask yourself what you would do in that kind of, must produce, situation. Would you spend a lot of time reading a lot of books, hoping to find the gem in the gravel pit? Or, would you find the easiest way possible to meet the deadline such that it will keep you from being criticized? While you consider your answer to that, consider the fact that these guys get thousands of unsolicited copies of books each year, most of which are bad or inappropriate.
A big city newspaper reviewer, knows he will not be faulted for posting a review of King's latest Thriller. The king fans, of course, will love the reviewer. What he is doing is filling column inches. That's probably how he sees his job. His job is not seeking out and finding good books for his readers. There is risk in that and it's hard work. It's safe and easy to review King. It may not be safe at all to devote column inches to an unknown artist. Safe stuff will not get him questioned, will not get him in trouble, will not get him fired.
Here is the real situation from my own experience and from everything I have read about getting your book reviewed by a big city newspaper. You will save a lot of postage costs and a great deal of disappointment by just putting the books in the Dumpster yourself. If you send a book by an unknown author from an unknown publisher to a big city newspaper reviewer, except for the occasional fluke, that's where it will end up.
Here is one real case from my experience. When I published "The Gaffer's Shorts" I sent bound proof copies to every major newspaper in the United States. There was absolutely no response. Sometime later I received a phone call from a sportswriter at one of the Detroit papers. He was working the night shift and for something to do, he had selected my title from the slush heap. That's where he found it.
It turns out that these books are opened and the unknown ones are just put in this pile. Anyone who works there has picks on the pile. I suppose the pile is disposed of periodically. The reviewer does not bother with them. Enough said for now. I'll get into why the sportswriter called when I review that publishing effort later.
My experience with technical journals is somewhat different. When I published "The Anatomy of a PC" I sent bound proof copies to several technical and hobby magazines. I followed these proof copies with copies of the finished book when it was ready. Two things happened. The book was favorably reviewed by Bill Harrington of VideoMaker Magazine. That made me happy.
The other thing that happened is that the book was not reviewed by any computer magazines. However, my title was used and some of my ideas were used in an article by another writer in one computer magazine. I wrote about this previously when I discussed ethics. What happened was not technically plagiarism, but it did disappoint me. I thought, and I still believe, that what happened was not ethical.
When I brought the matter to the attention of a senior editor at the magazine in question, his response was a vicious personal attack on me. So much for integrity. What can I do about this? Nothing. However, I happen to be one of those crazy people who believe in the ultimate justice of the universe. What goes around does come around. I did notice that the writer in question never did another piece for that magazine. I have found that this is a rather typical American management practice. Hush it up, cover it up, then fix it up.
The lesson here is that there is risk and potential reward in sending books out for review. Your book may actually receive a favorable review in some paper or journal. The down side is, you may just be providing fresh material for some unscrupulous hack writer.
The Anatomy of a PC also received favorable reviews from two independent book reviewers. These were from Jim Cox of Midwest Book Review and Alan Caruba of Bookviews. Both of these are internet based book review operations.
Now to the nitty-gritty. So far as I could determine, all of these favorable reviews of our PC book produced exactly one verifiable sale. There are possibly five other maybes. So, what's wrong here? My theory is that it's about exposure and genre. The organizations which reviewed my book have a very limited and specific audience. Although I sincerely appreciated the reviews they we not effective from a sales standpoint.
As to genre, this is an important thing about book reviews. It does not help to have a book reviewed and presented to a readership which is not interested. I believe a favorable review of my PC book in a PC magazine would have been extremely effective. A favorable review of a PC book in a literary journal would not be effective at all. This is something to consider when you send out review copies.
My conclusion about book reviewing is that the legitimate channels of book reviewing have failed. They have failed the publishing industry and they have failed their own readers. The fact is, most people who read book review columns believe that the reviewer is honestly trying to find new gems for them to read. In most cases, I believe that is simply not true. Most of them are simply looking for easy ways to meet their quota.
The failure of the legitimate channels of book reviewing and marketing have caused huge openings for blatant abusers and con men. They have sprung up all over the place. One con which I have encountered is common enough that Jim Cox of Midwest Book Review has addressed it. This is the case where a crummy person poses as a reviewer, just to get a free copy of the book. It happened to me once. A person telephoned and said he wanted to review my PC book and requested a copy. I foolishly sent one to him. Cost, one book and $5.00 in international postage. This is so petty that a real con-man would be embarrassed by it.
In the case of a person requesting a review copy of your book Jim Cox has this advice. Agree to send the book just as soon as you receive the formal request on the letterhead of the alleged reviewer's employer. Legitimate reviewers won't be put off by this, but con-men will. It requires that they create a paper trail of fraud. Most con-men are not dumb enough to do that.
Another sad result of the failure of legitimate book reviewing is the notion of paying for a review. We can now get book reviews for a fee. I must wonder. what would be the value of such a paid review? Nonetheless, it is being done. Here is the unedited rather impassioned rationalization from Foreword Magazine's e-mail newsletter. You be the judge. Next time I will begin with a look at booksellers and distributors.
1. SHOULD PUBLISHERS PAY FOR REVIEWS?
Well, if you haven't heard by now, your modem crashed. On Tuesday
ForeWord announced a new pay-per-review system to be launched
at BEA and the controversy appears to be just beginning. How dare
we squash the wall between money and editorial content! Ironic,
because just when the publishing industry's output is poised to
overwhelm readers, most other traditional review outlets are cutting
their space devoted to books just as we're expanding.
For example, for the past year, the New York Times Book Review
has grown thinner and thinner, its space devoted primarily to
a set of celebrity authors. The San Francisco Chronicle's book
review section just redesigned their pages. The newspaper's new
book coverage will devote the same number of pages to books, but
print fewer reviews in favor of interviews and feature articles.
The Seattle Times cut its review section by two thirds, the San
Jose Mercury News by a third, and the Boston Globe may fold its
Sunday book section altogether.
There have been rumblings that VNU, the U.S firm that publishes
Britain.'s The Bookseller, and that recently purchased Kirkus
Reviews, will expand operations stateside. When that happens,
one has to wonder whether Kirkus will remain ad-free and have
as many pages devoted to reviews. As for the standard review media
for the bookseller and library market-PW, LJ, SLJ, Booklist-these
publications have clearly been unable to expand their reviewing
space to meet the growing demand.
As the technologies of print-on-demand, self-publishing, and e-publishing
send exponential numbers of "new" books into distribution,
how are readers going to be able to find the book they're looking
for? How are acquisition librarians going to be able to sort through
the slush to find worthy titles for their patrons? And how are
those librarians going to justify expenditures of public funds
on unknown books and unproven authors without reviews to back
them up? How are trade buyers going to be made aware that a particular
title even exists, let alone whether it has merit for their
customers and whether it is available in a particular format?
Trade Paperback original? PDF? Mass-market? Audiobook? HTML? Hardcover?
It's an impossible task! The elimination of credible review space
only makes it harder. Every book review outlet, whether magazine,
newspaper or Internet can tell you?.they turn away great books
every day because they don't have the time, money and space to
review them.
With the chance of any book receiving review attention continually
shrinking, how are publishers going to let the trade and consumers
know of the value of their books? We have an answer.
ForeWordreviews.com is the brainchild of ForeWord Magazine in
collaboration with OverDrive, Inc. For a fee of $295 per book,
ForeWordreviews.com will review your submitted book and permanently
archive each review. The fee does not guarantee a positive review,
but rather guarantees the publisher or author access to a qualified
book reviewer who will complete a 400-word critique of the book.
The fee also provides for lifetime archival of the review
in the Web site's database with free access to site visitors,
and electronic delivery of the review to the country's two largest
wholesale
databases. Both Ingram's iPage and Baker & Taylor's Title
Source II have agreed to expand their current license agreement
with ForeWord to include all of the book reviews completed through
ForeWordreviews.com. Publishers and authors also have the unlimited
right to reproduce the review in ads, brochures, jacket copy,
and other marketing efforts.
Of course we recognize that paying for editorial coverage has
long been seen as compromising journalistic standards of objectivity
and quality. However, the new partnership sees forewordreviews.com
as a fee for services arrangement - the freelance book reviewers
whose credentials merit working with the new review outlet receive
the same payment regardless of whether the review is positive,
negative, or somewhere in between.
When the publicists who work for conglomerate publishers like
Simon & Schuster or Random House ring up book critics
who publish in the New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly,
Library Journal, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the like,
and invite them to lunch, that acess is a form of consideration.
It may not be money, per se, but the large houses undoubtedly
exert their influence and connections to benefit their authors.
Smaller publishers never had a chance to access those kinds of
connections. Until now.
Even traditional review media, however well-intentioned and respectable
we may be, rely on the opinions and, yes, sometimes even the whims
of editors and book reviewers, along with the marketing savvy
of publicists. These elements combined have dictated which books
are opened, read, and reviewed for the trade and which books are
not.
The book publishing trade reviews one book in ten. There is little
opportunity in that percentage for the thousands of publishers
whose marketing budgets don't allow for schmoozing with the traditional
review outlets. The books published by mid-list authors don't
even have a prayer in the current system. They aren't blockbusters
and their authors aren't typically celebrities.
Forewordreviews.com brings publishers and authors unprecedented
access to a quality book review process. To librarians and booksellers,
ForeWordreviews.com brings great books they might never have discoverer
and to the reader, ForeWordreviews.com is a lifeboat in the rising
flood.
-Mardi Link, Editor-in-Chief
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