Clint Gaige

Reviews, reviews, reviews

I should start this by saying, I LOVE reviewers. I really do. Anyone who takes the time to read a book and post their feelings about the book both good and bad deserves praise...it is too often a thankless job.

Today, I'm a little peeved at one reviewer in question. I won't name any names and I won't mention any publications.

The reviewer loved the book and for that I am grateful. But, they commented on two things...editing and publicity. Now, editing, is a fair comment. Its all part of the product. She caught 6 typos in the book and felt that was too many. I don't actually agree, but I live in the real world. As a publisher I have to continually balance the cost of manpower to proof a book over and over and over again. Eventually, someone has to say, "get it into print." That someone is me. We do give our authors a final proof to catch anything we missed, but typos are never the author's fault at least according to this reviewer. I tend to think it falls on all of us and the blame should be shared but 6 typos in a 250 page book is not unreasonable from a business perspective...the author in me disagrees but I'm running a business. Ironically, the reviewer had a typo in her one page review of the book, but it was an ezine and easy to fix the review (the typo is no longer there, they corrected it after I helped them proof the review).

I would also add that I don't think I can pick up any book I own and not find at least six errors and I own a lot of books. As I said, editing is a fair attack. I can live with that. The buck stops with me.

What bothered me was the reviewer said that we did not support our authors with publicity and the only way she found out about the book was at a conference. First of all, author panels at conferences are one way of reaching readers...but, that aside, we do work VERY hard to promote our authors. For this particular book, we ran print ads, we ran television and radio ads. We sent out ARC's. I think its presumptious and unfair for reviewers to assume that because they haven't heard of a book the publisher has somehow not tried to publicize the book.

I also found it insulting in this day and age when larger presses are doing less and less...and we're trying to do more and more, that we were put down in a review for not supporting our authors. I hadn't heard of a major book from a major publisher until it was nominated for an Edgar...does that mean there was no publicity? No, it means I just missed it. I certainly wouldn't call out the publisher in a review.

posted by Clint Gaige @ 12:57 PM