A blogger who published a good book
not long ago wrote to ask me how he could get it reviewed in the print media. Sighing, I hit the appropriate key in my head and spewed out Version 2.59 of a short paragraph I’ve sent to God only knows how many authors of six-month-old books: “Books are only reviewed on date of publication in major magazines/newspapers. I know, it’s a pain in the ass, but that’s the way it works, basically without exception. Your only hope is to get people to write pieces about your blog that mention the book.”
His reply:
Now there is a subject worthy of a post. Please do. I guess that periodicals are devoted to what is “new.”
So thank god for the blogosphere where someone can “review” a book which was published ten years ago.
Well said, and I do have a feeling that blogs are becoming–slowly but, I hope, surely–an increasingly significant force driving the sale of midlist and backlist books. On the other hand, it’s worth remembering that this phenomenon is made possible by two other phenomena. The first is linkage. The reason why people buy books after reading about them on blogs is because they can–i.e., all they have to do is click on the link. And the reason why they can is because of the emergence of on-line bookstores.
Could it be that the interaction of book-oriented blogs and on-line bookstores is starting to have an unforeseen effect on literary criticism? Might the dynamics of what we now think of as “book reviewing” be in the process of evolving away from the books-as-news paradigm that drives the book-review sections of most magazines and newspapers? Ideally, a blog can make an old book news. So can a magazine or newspaper, but do they? Not often. In any case, a blog, at least in theory, is the ideal medium for promoting a book, be it old or new, precisely because linkage facilitates true impulse buying.
Have I mentioned recently, by the way, that you can place an advance order for A Terry Teachout Reader, out in May from Yale University Press, by clicking here? Yes, I just plugged myself–and why not? What’s a blog for? I couldn’t be happier that Yale is publishing my book, but I don’t have any illusions about their ability to promote it. And if by some weird caprice of fate the Teachout Reader had instead been signed by a trade publisher, I wouldn’t have any illusions about their willingness to promote it. It’s a collection of essays, and (repeat after me) Essay Collections Don’t Sell. And while I certainly can’t predict the future of book publishing, I’ll fall down dead if the total amount of space devoted to book reviews in American magazines and newspapers increases in 2004.
Bottom line: when it comes to serious books, the action is here, not there. So let’s make the most of it.
UPDATE: Andy Kessler has a very interesting and relevant piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal about how he self-published a book:
I put together dozens of bound galleys and sent them to reviewers, the usual places–Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. I sat back and waited for the glowing reviews to roll in, but was met with the sounds of silence. I checked through back channels and, sure enough, I got stiffed. They just don’t review self-published books. I was on my own.
So like Bill Clinton in his ’92 campaign, I went around the traditional gatekeepers. I sent out copies to friends and old contacts at newspapers, business magazines and TV, like CNBC. I didn’t get any classic book reviews, but probably something better–mentions in articles, short little “hey, I liked this new book” mentions.
I also hit the Web. Nice pieces showed up in a bunch of daily e-mails sent to financial types. Author Michael Lewis said some nice things in a Bloomberg.com column, and the book shot up to No. 26 on Amazon. I did get one real review on Slashdot, whose moniker is “News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters,” and that morning my server got flooded with hits.
And a funny thing happened–the book sold well….
Read the whole thing here.