Publication Dates
Guest Blogging with us again today is Ara 13
Why are reviewers concerned with publication dates? In my request for reviews, I will often be told by critics that they will only review books that have yet to be published (even though the ARC can be out for years, just as long as the publication date artificially states it is new). I think what the reviewers mean is that they want books that have yet to be released to the general public, so let’s begin there.
I can appreciate busy critics needing to create hard lines to lessen the load of the number of books that would hit their desk for review; just as I can understand the same hard line created by them to reject Indie Publications, or for large publishing houses not to accept queries from anyone other than an agent. Without some hard criteria, they would be inundated with requests, and the gears would come to a halt.
Do I like it? Not in the least. These hard lines are huge roadblocks for me. But if I were in their shoes, would I manufacture the same hard criteria for utility sake? Perhaps. Likely not, because I am a little more inventive than that, and a little more in the corner of the underdog, and a little more confident in my ability to parse through the various layers of quality, and a little less confident in other’s ability to do the same. But, in the end, my business sensibilities suggest, it is their business and they can make all the inane criteria they want. Let the market deem them stupid. (And isn’t it doing just that?)
Now, aside from the explanation of desperate utility, is there any other reason that release dates should matter enough to reviewers that they reject older publications? First, if these reviewers truly only handle new releases, if that is the theme of their blog, column, work, then so be it. But truthfully, I learn they will reject Indies due to publication date and then review Lolita. The ruse becomes evident.
Let’s face it; book reviewers are not really writing hard, breaking news. Sure, a review has a better chance of being read (can’t fault the critic for wanting an audience) if the book already has some buzz about it, and that buzz could be related to the majesty of the release. But again, let’s get real; most of us are not Thomas Pynchon (I feel I can safely say this), with a new long-awaited release. And most reviewers don’t have a fan base that merits Pynchon’s concerns. In fact, most books have yet to be discovered by a majority of the reading audience, even those books produced by large houses.
Considering, as of now, that Indie authors on average sell 150 books, it is safe to say any review will likely be novel to the larger public regardless of publication or release date. Doesn’t this fact in itself reveal the criteria as artifice? Couldn’t the critic then make priority his concept of quality as the sole criteria?
Consider why most agents won’t accept books that have been published. (If you thought you would impress agents by selling many books yourself, you have a hard lesson coming on the criteria of most agents. They won’t even consider your book, The Bridges of Madison County aside.) I, personally, believe that that hard line is there because agents deep down don’t trust their own sense of what is good enough to be a big seller, and they want to be able to recoup every penny of sales, sales that, if the book already has been published by an Indie author, likely were already transacted with that author’s friends and thinning network.
Of course, those of us optimistic about our work think this mentality is quite short-sighted. Even if I sold several hundred books, is that so much as a blip on the radar of sales for a great work? Well, that’s the problem; isn’t it? One would first have to be able to discern a work as great.
What the hell is this post about?
I suppose it is about criteria that, perhaps having a utility, though at the expense of missing great works, is certain to be reconsidered with all the other aspects of publication as this industry transitions. And I am interested in your feedback. For, as you can see, I’m still mulling this topic over.
Ara 13 is the author of the International-Award-Winning novel, Drawers & Booths. He can be researched at Ara13.com .
zoewinters
Moriah Jovan
R.J. Keller
robinaltman
Evangeline Holland
alanbaxter
I’m not sure I have an explanation for the behavior of reviewers. Your suggestion that reviewers need some way to lighten the load of books that they have to choose from sounds like a good explanation to me.
But that doesn’t quite explain why music reviewers and movie reviewers do the same thing. Most music and movie reviews are published right before a movie or album is released.
Perhaps it’s because these giant media corporations are still operating under an outdated and failing business model. In Hollywood, a new movie is expected to make most of it’s money during it’s first weekend of release. And any movie that is more than two weeks old is ancient history. The same is true of new music and new book releases — most of the promotion will occur, and most of the sales will be made, following the product’s initial release.
But this is a marketing strategy that only works to the benefit of the media corporation (to maximize their profits and their shareholders’ dividends); it does not benefit the individual artist or writer. As a writer, I gain nothing by limiting my window of sales opportunity to just a month or a few weeks. As the creator of a long-tail product, I need to rely on those readers who will find my novels six months from now, a year from now, maybe even five years from now. So it is up to me to keep my name out there, keep letting people know that I exist and that I have written a couple of novels. (This is why I will continue to offer ebook versions of my novels for free for the foreseeable future: because a new, potential reader could show up at my website at any time.)
Your references to Pynchon and Nabokov illustrate my point. Even today new readers continue to discover their work, even though much of that work is decades old. I still continue to discover “new” music that is 10, 15, even 20 years old.
So perhaps the reason why there is such an emphasis upon the publication date of a book is because that is the game that the giant media corporations have always played — and it’s a game that too many reviewers are caught up in.
Ara, great post! You are so right – I never thought about it. When I read a book review, and ask for it at Borders, they never have it. I never thought to ask “why”. I assumed they ran out of them. *blush*
The real reason is so incredibly dumb, I didn’t consider it.
Actually, the movie reviews makes sense to me, in that the new releases are in most theaters only for so long. There, timeliness is a greater consideration than with novels. If there were no theaters and the industry only had rental places, the analogy would be similar.
But ultimately, I see my complaint to be based primarily on scale. Time and again, examples such as Still Alice show (not that any Indie can make it big, which I think is the wrong lesson to derive from her success) but that when they do get signed by a big house, and when the Indie book is rereleased, even though it was in the public for awhile, it simply doesn’t matter. The larger market is so much bigger that the novel is new to most people, and initial publication date is trivial. Her success, for me, further exposes the artifice of concern with publication date.
I’ve actually done some experimenting with the review submission guidelines. I’ve submitted to different level reviewers, some more known than others. I would offer my earlier book with a 2007 pub. date. If I received a “Sorry, unfortunately we only review books which will be released within the next three months,” I would reply with, “Great my second novel will be released this March and I will gladly send you an ARC.” The reactions are quite revealing:
The big shot reviewers won’t respond to this reply, since I have shown their reason for denial to be a fabrication covering up the fact that they don’t want to say, “Sorry, chances are your book sucks because it is Indie, and I am happy to use publication date as the official excuse so as not to look like a snob.” I would much rather they out and said the truth about their arbitrary line against Indies, produced for utility sake to control the amount of submissions. That, I would understand somewhat.
The middle reviewers (usually ones who post in multiple sites and not just a personal blog) realize I overcame their objection about publication date and respond enthusiastically about reviewing my newer book; never once considering why that requirement was in place to begin with.
Crazy, Huh?
In case you are wondering, those who review only on personal blogs usually always accept my book regardless of publication date, based solely on their interest in the subject matter. A purity I love.
“those who review only on personal blogs usually always accept my book regardless of publication date, based solely on their interest in the subject matter”
That dovetails nicely with what I posted the other day about book review blogs. The little, personal blogs might have a smaller audience, but they might be a better fit for some indie ventures because it’s often a very specialized audience, the exact audience that an author is looking to reach.