The Critical Eye
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7.27.10: The Reviewer’s Voice by Joseph Arellano
7.20.10: Making the Time to Read by Joseph Arellano
7.7.10: A Simple Question, Not So Easily Answered by Joseph Arellano
6.7.10: Sequels and Prequels by Joseph Arellano
5.18.10 Average is Not Good Enough by Joseph Arellano
4.28.10: Reviewing the Nonfiction Book (as simple as 1-2-3) by Joseph Arellano
4.20.10: The First-Person Narrative Crisis by Albert Riehle
4.13.10: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Reviewer, by Joseph Arellano
4.8.10: Catching Flies With Honey or Manure
3.17.10: After the Review–How to Deal With Criticism
3.9.10: Finding the Balance in Book Reviewing
2.17.10: A Tale Of Two Publishers
As an example of why some publishers get reviews more often from us than others, I’m going to use two publishers we’ve been working with for more than a year. Both are independent, both publish a number of mid-range art books ($50-75), along with pop-culture and other titles. Let’s call them Publisher A and Publisher C.
Even though we request about the same number of titles from both companies, we probably review almost twice as many books from Publisher C as we do Publisher A. Reasons why? My last set of book requests from the first week in February to both probably serve as a case in point.
I sent an email to my book request contact at both publishers, requesting a mix of current books, along with shipping information and a request for updates, if any of the books have been canceled or postponed. I got a return email from Publisher C within about 10 minutes, confirming the request, cc’ing the publicity assistant responsible for shipping the books to us. I got an email from the publicity assistant not long after, confirming that she was going to send out the books that she had on hand, and would send the others as they became available. I’ve already received several of those books from them in the last week.
Two weeks later, I still haven’t had any confirmation that anyone at Publisher A has even opened my email to them. This is usual, and I expect I’ll get a box of about 50% of the books I requested within another week or so. So the books we get from them will usually get reviewed, but we can’t review books we don’t get. So, if Publisher C sends me 15 books, they’ll probably get 10-12 reviewed. Publisher A sends 8, and gets 4-5 reviewed.
This also ends up effecting placement subconsciously, I’ve discovered. Publisher C has had more books highlighted in both papers, and at least one cover on an insert. I don’t think Publisher A has had a single book highlighted or a cover yet. And I’ve never specifically thought when making those decisions “Hey, I’m going to screw Publisher A over because they don’t send us the books we’re looking for,” but I think that responsiveness from Publisher C translates over into our trying to do as much for them when we can.
Running a small book review (even one with 45 thousand readers each month) is a balancing act. Trying to get enough books to have a wide coverage of topics and publishers, yet also trying to take care of the publishers that take care of us (which doesn’t translate into positive reviews for books that don’t deserve them, but more like going the extra mile for those that are supportive, month in and month out.) Problems with one publicist can effect our interactions with the rest of the department, as we work with more than 1,000 publicists and 300 publishers and imprints. Why work with the ones you have to struggle with when there are hundreds of others helpful and pleasant to deal with?
I still remember the first package that came in from a publisher almost two years ago as I started working on this project. I was requesting Fall 08 catalogs from about 40 publishers, and telling them we were going to go to press in the Fall. About a week after my first batch of emails, I got not only the Fall 08 catalog from Knopf, but three galleys of Fall books. Two months before we had our first issue out, Taschen sent us the Michelangelo XL, which ended up on the cover of the first issue. When making last-minute decisions of which book review makes print and which doesn’t, those early supporters still get the nod. I’ve stuck a Knopf book into one issue or another more times than I can remember, because of those first 3 galleys. (Though it did take us almost a year and a half to get a Knopf book on the cover of one of the papers, but I looked every month for one that fit the theme and color scheme).
The takeaway for this? We can’t review a book we don’t get. I get complaints from publicists all the time about how they hate sending books to review outlets and never hear anything from them, including if a review was ever run. Works the other way, too. I’d rather know we aren’t going to get a book we requested, so I can take it off my list, instead of just pining next to the mailbox, wondering when I just might get that one specific book. And when that happens often enough from a specific publisher or publicist, it eventually taints other interactions we have with their books. Much as if a publisher or publicist sent us books for months, and we never reviewed any of them, or never acknowledged getting them. I’d rather have an email telling me I won’t be getting titles, than not knowing.
–Ross Rojek
ross@1776productions.com
2.9.10: Book Triage
Here is a practical example of what I do each week with incoming books. This picture is a sorta-light load of books for a week–about 225 titles total and one T-shirt (was part of a media kit, and got separated from the book within a couple of seconds.). It took me about an hour to unpack and sort, so each book only gets maybe 15 seconds (on average) of processing time. Within that 15 seconds, I place a book into one of several piles.
Pile 1 – Requested book or interesting book — high priority to get reviewed.
Pile 2 – Not requested, don’t remember requesting — will make available to our reviewers for them to decide if they want to review it.
Pile 3 – Didn’t request, not compelling – might or might not put out for review.
Pile 1 is usually the smallest. I have a pretty good memory, so if I requested a book from a publisher, I’ll usually remember. (While we don’t review every book we request, it has a much higher chance of being reviewed than a book we didn’t request.) Something new and interesting will get added to that pile as I unpack.
Pile 2 is probably the largest. We get lots of unrequested books, and those get sorted mostly based on that 15-second impression. Packaging counts too. A book sent wrapped in a grocery bag as the envelope will probably go into Pile 3. Most self-published books also go into Pile 3 right off the bat, until I have time to look at them (POD books are highly recognizable as opposed to a mass-produced book, and my experience with POD books is that most of them don’t get picked up for review).
From this particular load, I got several hand-written notes, including one from a local author sending in his book. He referenced reading the paper and that we’d recommended several books he’d gone on to read himself and enjoy – Pile 2, even though the book looked POD (the note helped, as does being a local author).
The T-shirt with a book was probably a nice touch, but as it doesn’t stack well, got separated from the book, and now I don’t know which one it belonged to.
I got one hand-written media kit with a book (a cover page hand-written – TITLE Media Kit).
There was one indy publicist sent us a load of all their new books. Probably 20 in total. Most of those will probably go out for review.
We had a large load of ARCs this time around–about 30 total. Those help in getting books reviewed in a timely manner. We have probably a 30-45-day lag on average to get a book in, out to a reviewer, and back ready for publication. So, getting an ARC 60+ days in advance helps us get the review into the issue the month the book is hitting the stores, and we like being able to do that.
Next week: A Tale of Two Publishers, or why some publishers get a higher percentage of books reviewed than others.
–Ross Rojek
ross@1776productions.com
2.2.10: Getting Books Reviewed – Part Two
One of the downsides to being a book review editor is I get lots of email solicitations for books. Many of them are bulk mail from a publicist, pushing one book or another. Others are obviously single emails from an author who ran across our paper or our online posting of reviews on Amazon. I usually skim the PR and either reply or delete.
Does this mean spamming editors works? Probably not.
I’m probably one of the more polite editors and don’t just delete everything. What doesn’t work is when I get the same email more than once (and I have a pretty good memory for these things.) Certain publicists just spam out the same solicitation for a book multiple times, hoping for a hit.
Individual author emails get treated somewhat differently. I know how hard it is to get a book reviewed, so anyone that seems to have taken enough time to know the sorts of things we are interested in, and can give me a reason for why I should take a look at their book (“I have a book that is like X that you reviewed two months ago, and I’d like to see if you’d be interested in reviewing mine.”), will at least get a quick reply – “Here is our submission page,” or “We’re not looking for any more books in that category right now.”
So what works with emails? First, if I’ve done stuff with you, I’ll recognize your name. That always helps. Something that catches enough of my attention to get past the first line or two. Something personal from someone I know that isn’t obviously part of a bulk mail. I count on the publicists we work with to point out books to me that I didn’t pick on my first go-round through their catalogs, provide me with good lists of holiday/seasonal books, or odd books that are getting notice elsewhere.
What doesn’t work? Calling me. I’ve had more than a couple of authors do that, and it interrupts my day. And I can’t tell any more about your book via a phone call than I could by an email, and an email I can deal with in my own time.
We also get a lot of unsolicited books. Probably between one-third and one-half of all the books we get are unrequested—from self-published books where the author discovered us, to publicists who just have a budget of books to send out, and we’re a reliable enough source for the chance of getting a review. I have several publicists who just send us everything they publish and let me sort out which I’m interested in. Helpful in some ways, because I’ll often err on the side of caution and not request a book I’m not quite sure we’ll get reviewed. Unless a book is bad enough on its cover (and yes, often a book gets judged by its cover as its being received), the unrequested books make it into the “Available for Review” list we send to our reviewers a couple of times a month. One romance publicist that just sends me everything probably gets more books on average reviewed this way than if I had to try and pick from her catalog. However, sending me a book unsolicited and then hassling me about when it is going to get reviewed is a pretty good way for your book to get dropped.
A note on sending books unsolicited: if I do not know you or your publishing house, make sure you send contact info if you’d like to know if/when we’ve reviewed your book. Probably about 10% of all the random books coming in do not have any publicist/author contact info. And I/we don’t have enough time in our day to track you down.
–Ross Rojek
Email Ross at ross@1776productions.com
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1.26.10 – Getting Books Reviewed – A Lesson in Multiple Parts
One question that comes up often in my job is “How do I get my book reviewed?” These initial columns are to give an overview of what I do to select the 400 (or so) books a month that we review at the Sacramento and San Francisco Book Reviews. I’m assuming my experiences are typical to other book editors at other publications, though because we only do book reviews, and a lot of them, that the filters elsewhere are much tighter.
Initially I go through publisher catalogs. I look for a wide selection of titles in the themes and genres we cover. Many books are no-brainers; a new Anne Rice book – check. Others are because we have a need in a particular section — Historical Fiction is often pretty light for us. I try to get a mix of major publishers, the small press, and everything in between. Sometimes I’ll see a book that I know one of my reviewers will want, and request it for them.
We review books in about 40 different categories. Twenty of them every month (Children’s Books, Modern Lit, Science Fiction & Fantasy); the other twenty switch off from month to month (Poetry & Short Stories, Home & Garden). I try to have as broad a selection within those categories as well. I’ll have a major poetry collection from Knopf, along side a university press book and maybe something from a local publisher. I’m hopeful each time that someone who only sees the books stacked on the tables at a B&N or Borders will read a review of something they’d never heard of, and go looking for it.
So the early requests to publishers gives me a base of titles to work with. We let our reviewers pick through those books as they come in, and through a sort-of Darwinian process, the books get picked up and sent off for review. You can always tell when a book or subject is hot, because you get multiple requests for it. Those, I flag as potential highlighted reviews (for us that’s a review of about 400 words instead of our normal 200-word target.) I also see books that I think are important or interesting and might flag those for a highlighted review as well, letting the reviewers know as they’re picking books we’ll want something longer than normal.
Of those books, we probably get about 80%. Some titles are too hot to go to a small publisher like ourselves; others, we might be too regional for their target audience. (Though I always do find it funny when I get a book I requested two months after its release. Obviously a publicist still had plenty to give away, and finally got to my name on the list. Realizing it takes on average two months to turn a review around, that book won’t usually be on the shelf or getting promotional support by the time we get our review published.)
After that, we get books in several ways. Unsolicited copies from publicists, email solicitations from publicists or authors, shelf-shopping at a book store, best seller lists, and reviewer suggestions. I’ll cover those next time. Eventually, we’ll get to how do you, an author/publicist, get your book review published.
–Ross Rojek
Email Ross at ross@1776productions.com
