In with the New!

Two weeks ago I mentioned that BiblioBuffet’s guidelines for submitting books for review consideration was undergoing some revisions. Those revisions are finished and now posted.

We will consider any books other than those in the following genres: business, self-help, true crime, New Age, and romance. Books published through publishing services such as those from iUniverse (especially those that come through its Authors Guild and ASJA partnerships), Xlibris, Booklocker, and Lulu will also be considered, but as always our first priority for review consideration is quality.

How is quality determined? The traditional way—that of an editor accepting on behalf of a publishing house and offering an advance—is changing. Sometimes rights to out-of-print books are reverted to authors who may elect to re-publish the book themselves. Sometimes multi-published authors may choose to publish one or more books themselves. And since there is no one way to excellent books, BiblioBuffet’s doors are open to all possibilities.

As stated, we focus on quality. Things we look at include whether the book was professionally edited; whether the author has published anything else, either in print or online, in a professional capacity (personal blogs don’t count); and if the book has been blurbed  by anyone recognizable. First and foremost, we look at story. Is it well written? Is it worthy of our readers’ time and attention? Finally, does the cover art and interior design of the book meet commercial standards?

In other words, we expect any book we review to be good enough for a bookstore shelf even if because of the lack of distribution it wouldn’t make it there. As always, BiblioBuffet hasn’t and will not compromise its integrity. If we say a book is worth reading then we believe it is worth reading regardless of its heritage. You can count on that!

The Right Direction

Since BiblioBuffet opened its doors on January 8, 2006, our policy for considering books for review has pretty much stayed the same. We consider trade books, that is, books from commercial or university presses in all genres except  books that are not self-published or vanity-published, in all genres except business, self-help, true crime, New Age and romance. Each one has its reasons for being on our “no” list.

More important, we do not review self-published or vanity-published books. The reason is that finding a book worth reviewing is like finding that needle in the haystack, and digging through mountains of dreck in search of the rare gem is not worth our time.

It still isn’t for the most part, but technological changes have wrought changes in industry practices. Recently, there have been a few literary agencies who have moved in directions from author representation to publishing. They don’t plan to compete with the publishing houses, but instead are moving to re-issue their clients’ backlists. In addition, some authors, including our own Carl Rollyson and Lev Raphael, are publishing new editions, both print and e-books, of their own works now that they have the rights back.

BiblioBuffet would not consider books like this to be self-published, though they technically are in their new editions. These books have been through what is termed the editorial gatekeeping process, that is, they were selected by a commercial trade publisher who believed in the book enough to put money, time, and editorial/design/sales/marketing/publicity talent behind it. What is being re-issued is not a raw book that only an author’s mother could love, but one that was successfully created for and marketed to the reading public.

We also have, thanks to Pete Croatto, our sports book reviewer, another aspect to consider—self-published books that are that rare gem. Belue to Scott! is one of them. It was written by Robbie Burns, a man with the passion for the team he wrote about but also with a professional writing background on sports and sports history. It made him uniquely qualified to write a self-published “gem.”

Those two reasons are why Nicki and I have been talking again about revising our “Submit Books for Review” guidelines, and this time it is going to happen. But we don’t want to open BiblioBuffet’s doors to everyone; we will continue to hold to our high standards for the writing we present and the books we talk about.

The revised guidelines will be some time within the next two weeks. Though they are still be written and edited, they will include the following so that we know the writers understands the process of writing a good book:

• Was there an editor? If so, who? What else have they edited?
• Has the author published anything else, either in print or online in a professional capacity? (Personal blogs don’t count.)
• Is the book blurbed by anyone recognizable?

These are not the only considerations but they will be a part. And while we haven’t yet finalized the wording, we do know that we must open ourselves to these new changes that have arrived because our mission statement—Writing Worth Reading, Reading Worth Writing About—does not say, imply, or infer anything less than that we at BiblioBuffet want to show you a few of the best books out there. We cannot do that unless we utilize the best of the industry changes. Or as Nicki phrased it, since “the gatekeepers are gone from the kingdom, it probably means we need to step in their place.”

We’ve seen the new direction, and we are ready for what it will bring.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

In a manner of speaking, they are changing. But only a bit. Our submission guidelines (for those seeking reviews) currently state this:

BiblioBuffet’s mission is to bring into the public eye high- quality books from small andmedium-size commercial publishers including university presses, though we review from large houses as well. We accept books, both fiction and nonfiction, in all genres except business, self-help, true crime, New Age, and romance. We do not review self-published or vanity-published books, which include but are not limited to those from Publish American, Vantage Press, Xlibris, iUniverse, Dorrance, Booklocker, and Lulu.

Two reasons exist for this: (1) it helps us manage our inflow by cutting down on the number of books we receive, and (2) it filters out books that lack any kind of editorial gatekeeping, that is, they have not been selected, paid for, and edited by houses whose goal is to sell books to the public.

When I originally wrote thes guidelines, I had in mind factors that would help determine how we would define a “commercial” press, especially because we wanted to find good books from smaller publishing houses. One of those factors was distribution. To keep it simple, I will say that distribution is the means by which publishers sell their books to the book buyers and owners of brick-and-mortar stores. Online stores, on the other hand, list every book that has an ISBN, a unique identifying number. The difference is important because online shopping, whether at Amazon, Powell’s, or your local independent store’s site, is rarely good for browsing. If you know what you want or if you are looking for a nonfiction title on a specific subject (“how to sail”) it can be excellent, but if you are a fiction reader wanting to browse new titles there is almost no way to . . . easily browse. You are up against millions of books. At physical bookstores, browsing is easy; you have fewer books but you have the ability to take them off the shelf, check out their cover art, skim the blurbs and jacket copy, and read enough to determine if it is a book you want to buy. These are comparison factors that can’t really yet—even with excerpts—be gotten online.

This is where recommendations come in. These could come from various sources: friends and family members whose taste you trust; book clubs; readers’ discussion forums like Dirda’s Reading Room, Book Balloon, LibraryThing, GoodReads; or some of the numerous excellent blogs and websites devoted to books and reading, whether they are connected to bookstores, magazines, or newspapers, or are run independently, and whether they specialize or are general.

As one of these general independent websites, BiblioBuffet takes its responsibilities to its readers seriously. We have what we believe to be some of the best writers around. We give them maximum freedom to find books that interest them, and we encourage them to write honestly.

One of our guidelines for reviews and reviewers, as noted above, is that we do not review self-published or vanity-published books. But that “rule” has loosened up a bit lately because we have run across a few—a very few—independently or self-published books that go above and beyond the usual self-published level. One of those was a book called Bound for Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad, issued by Dead Letter Press, a niche publisher of fine limited edition books of new and classic fantasy and horror fiction. DLP’s books do not have the traditional channel of distribution to bookstores. Instead, they must be ordered from the publisher’s website. But . . . these books are as carefully conceived, planned, and executed as any other—and more so than most.

More are coming too. Nicki Leone is working on a column about a new book of poetry, an unusual book in several ways (“about race in the south by the former NC poet laureate, printed in a limited letter press edition, selling for $100, with covers made from old pulped confederate flags”). And Pete Croatto recently e-mailed us to ask about the possibility of reviewing a self-published book he discovered that he feels is going to be fantastic.  (We said yes.) Neither of these books is going to be available through bookstores, but they are available. And because they are excellent you, our readers, deserve to know about them.

During our e-mail discussion with Pete over the book, Nicki wrote what I feel was a to-the-point summary of our goals: 

The most important thing is that BB’s writers have the freedom to write about what moves them. I trust all our columnists to understand when a book is worth reviewing and when it isn’t, so if you have found a self-published book that covers an important or interesting topic or event, or that you think is particularly well done, or brings up an interesting issue that you want to tackle, then that seems like enough justification to me to write about it. 

Lauren’s points about BB’s original criteria are worth keeping in mind, and should be honored for their intentions, if not followed to the letter. . . . if you do decide to review a self-published book, it needs to be evaluated as if it had received all the editorial work one expects from a traditional press. If it doesn’t show that level of craft—if the text is rambling, the typesetting bad, the cover looks like someone’s first Photoshop project, then the review needs to fault the book for it.

I don’t recommend changing the official submission policy, all the while keeping in mind internally that there may be a difference between “self-published” and “vanity” and that once in a blue moon the former can be considered, if one of our writers is interested enough or passionate enough about the book.

So while our original guidelines are not changing they are incorporating flexibility so that we at BiblioBuffet can continue to bring you news of books that offer “writing worth reading” and are “reading worth writing about.”

Advantage: Point

In tennis, there is a term called “advantage.” This happens when the two players have reached a kind of point stalemate called “deuce,” which requires that one of them win two consecutive points in order to win the game. The player who wins the next point after deuce is said to have the advantage. If that player wins the next point the game is hers. If not, the score returns to deuce. This will repeat itself until one player is able to score two points in a row and take the game.

In publishing, the line between vanity houses and trade houses has until quite recently been firmly anchored. In my opinion, as far as books are concerned, it’s still firm. Most self-published and vanity-published titles are godawful things. The rule of thumb is that somewhere around 95% of all manuscripts submitted to trade publishers are un-publishable. (Unsolicited manuscripts are the stuff of which nightmares are made as anyone who has ever worked with them knows painfully well.) Of that remaining five percent, most of those are rejected for various reasons, leaving a mere one percent or so of all manuscripts in the “pubishable” arena.

But with the technological advances in printing those formerly un-publishable manuscripts are now being printed. I’ve mentioned before that nearly three times the number of “non-traditional” books as “traditional” books are being issued but regardless of their classification they are all looking for publicity. That often includes book reviews.

BiblioBuffet is accustomed to receiving press releases, both print and electronic, e-mail requests, and books for our consideration. Some come from authors, but most are from publicists or publishing houses. It doesn’t matter to us. But what does matter is who publishes the book. Even before we opened our virtual doors, we had set a policy in place that precluded consideration of self-published and vanity-published books. In my previous work as books editor for a local newspaper I dealt with vanity-published books as well as with the slush pile in my earlier work as executive assistant for a local publisher. When the concept for BiblioBuffet started to metamorphose into a real site our submission page, one of the first written, was firmly grounded in those experiences. There are far too many excellent books produced by viable commercial and university presses that we’d never be able to get to so why add to that with books that were unlikely to be worthy of anyone’s reading? The answer was obvious. We excluded them from the get-go. It simply wasn’t worth our time to plow through what were sure to be haystacks of books seeking those very few golden needles.

So when I received a large box filled with books recently from Vantage Press I was astounded. Vantage Press is an old-time vanity house, having been around since long before technology made vanity publishing easy and inexpensive. To their credit, they have never been less than honest about their pay-to-play model, and their products are good-looking and durable. But given our policy, I had to politely e-mail the publicist and let her know that due to the nature of their model and our policies that we could not, unfortunately, consider any of their books for review. I wish her luck in her marketing efforts, and I sincerely meant it. And I assumed that was the end of that.

To my surprise she wrote back a couple of days later. Normally this is not a good thing since it is the point at which, in the past, the answer to me reflects an unhappy person with an urge to snark. But not in this case. She was kind and thoughtful, and had obviously read our policies and understood the reasons for them. And then she went on to point out that this old-time vanity house would, in spring 2011, be opening a new “traditional” branch called Vantage Point, one that intended to be a commercial publisher with all the bells and whistles (editorial gatekeepers, author advances, royalties, bookstore distribution, publicity and marketing) of any other commercial press, and that would compete in the public marketplace. They would offer eight books in their first season, she said, and would BiblioBuffet be willing to consider them for review.

The answer is yes. Yes, we will because it matters not that part of their enterprise is a vanity house. (A number of commercial publishers now offer vanity arms, and the two are kept, so to speak, at arm’s length.) It only matters that Vantage Point is going to have a regular trade division staffed with people from the commercial world.

Frankly, no one is more surprised than I. It will certainly be interesting to see how this works out. And who knows . . .  maybe we’ll find some darn fine books.

Has Anyone Seen My Jaw?

I dropped it this morning when I read this announcement by Publishers Weekly, the premier trade magazine for the publishing industry.

Yes, I know—believe me, I know—that magazines, even trade ones, are hurting for income. I also know that self-publishing and vanity-publishing are making inroads into what was once a tightly closed market. And I cannot say I am opposed to it. Electronic reading devices are slowly, but certainly, finding their way and their fans, and in my view that can only be a good thing. If anything, including format, encourages reading of books it is good.

Here’s what they are going to do: Introduce a quarterly supplement that announces the self-published titles that have been submitted to them within a certain period of time. The authors are going to be charged $149 as a “processing fee.” In return, their listing will include basic information such as author, title, price, ISBN (the unique identifier of each book). In return, PW promises that the “entire PW editorial staff will participate in a review of the titles being considered for review.” They will also include paid ads from companies offering services to self-published authors. What especially appalls me though, are two things. First, in addition to PW editorial staff who—call me cynical—are likely being dragged kicking and screaming into this PW says they will “invite agent friends and distributors” to be part of the process, “to have a look.” You can see their lawyers have been all over this because they add the caveat “no promises,” just “opportunity.”

Opportunity, my ass.

We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

First, PW is not doing any selecting at all. It is running ads from anyone who sends in a book and $149. True, they are choosing from those books those for which they will provide a review but that leads me to my second point: what if fewer than twenty-five of the books that come in have merit? Do they hold their noses and pick the least worst and review those? Will they force their reviewers to say nice things to balance out any criticism? (One review publication I applied to early on—and then turned down after learning of their rules—actually required this.) How can what they receive be indicative of any self-publishing trends in the industry? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say it is more indicative of what those who can afford the fee are writing? And my final point: who is going to read this supplement? Who will benefit by it?

Not the reading public who will almost never see these books in bookstores. Not trade or university publishers or literary agents who have enough publishable books coming to them that have not lost their literary virginity (AKA first rights). Not the authors who will be out $149 for an ad that very few people will see and even fewer care about. What about those lucky twenty-five? Good for them, but I suspect not so good for their books. Unfortunately, PW is not the first publication to take money from authors that the regular publication disdains. Another trade magazine, Kirkus, did it with their Kirkus Discoveries (KD) program for what they termed “independently published authors.” Their charges were a breathtaking $425 or, for express service, $575. For that you get an “experienced reviewer” who specializes not only in certain fields but has been “segmented” into genre specialties. To their credit, they clearly state that KD is “a caveat emptor service that gives honest, impartial evaluations of the titles we receive.”

Points for honesty.

KD reviews do not end up in Kirkus—they are online only, and the professionals who subscribe to Kirkus don’t see them unless they look specifically for them. Most don’t.

The problem I have with KD and now PW’s supplement is that they are marketing these programs to authors who are seeking publicity to get their books in front of readers and/or trade publishers who will buy rights to publish the books themselves. Many are frantic, even desperate, for good reviews, and their emotional vulnerability can lead them into situations where they can be taken advantage of.

To me, this move by PW is no different from sleazy online sites that run reviews and charge for “expedited” service. The only difference is in the name. PW and Kirkus are known names in the industry; sleaze sites—oh, how I would love to name some of them—are not. But regardless of their name value websites and publications that charge money are not looking out for their readers; they  are looking at their bottom line. They are taking money from self-published or vanity-published authors, most of whom have not written “publishable” books but who are desperate for publicity. This makes me gag, PW. You know why? Because once you sell your reputation you can’t take it back.

The World of “e”

I am a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), which recently sent a e-mail request to its members asking its members to write a guest post for their “Next Decade in Book Culture series.” The question was: Are you using e-galleys? If not, are you ready to make the switch?”

E-galleys are electronic versions of galleys or ARCs (advance reader copy) of books. These are often sent out to reviewers in advance of publication date, hoping that reviews will begin before or not long after the books hit the consumer market. There is something of a debate over them going digital. Certainly they are more cost effective for the publisher, but how many reviewers and review publications accept them?

Naturally, I turned to BiblioBuffet’s contributors for their answers. But let me begin by noting that at BiblioBuffet, the consensus from reviewers on e-galleys is a near-universal “no.” A few books being published now are going straight to e-book (just as some books are now issued as trade paperback originals, a relatively recent development). They will not be issued in any other format. So we at BiblioBuffet will miss those, but we also wonder if doing that is going to knock out a lot of readers as well as reviewers who might otherwise read them.

Our disagreement with only issuing the book in one format, particularly the electronic version, is that it eliminates a portion of the book’s audiences, and I am speaking of both the reviewing and the reading ones. If a book is issued only issued in hardcover, price will eliminate some readers. If it is issued only in trade paperback, publishers might miss those who prefer hardcover or e-book formats. If it is issued solely in mass market paperback, that would eliminate a lot of readers who don’t like the throwaway quality of these books. And if it is issued in e-book format only, and especially in only one version like the Kindle, the non-electronic audience—for whatever reason—is entirely dismissed.

We believe that it is foolish to eliminate certain aspects of your reading audience when readers themselves are not a large portion of the population. Can publishers afford to throw away readers? Can they afford to throw away reviewers?

We at BiblioBuffet are not for the most part using e-galleys, nor do we anticipate doing so in the foreseeable future. We do use online catalogs, which I view as a wonderful thing. They save money, time, and paper, and are easy to update. The only thing I would like to see is publishers sending links to them to reviewers on a regular basis because they know when a new one is out. It’s being pro-active about notifying reviewers, and with a database and e-mail groups it’s a relatively easy thing to do.

There is a site that reviewers can register at and request these electronic review copies—NetGalley. I have tried it. I found it most unsatisfactory. I work on the computer all day. Our publication is online. I read industry news, keep up with readers’ forums, and chat via e-mail—all on the computer. It is a relief when I can turn it off and open up a book with nothing electronic to distract me. It’s a a real mental, physical, and emotional break from that world into the one we call life where reading has always existed.

On the other hand we, as reviewers, are inundated with books. At BiblioBuffet, we hold that the books sent to us, whether ARCs or final versions are not to be profited from. Part of our official policy is that they cannot be sold. Would e-books help alleviate that deluge? As Nicki Leone, Managing Editor, put it:

I’m not against using e-galleys. In fact, ARCs and review galleys were the one thing I could originally see as being ideal for e-reader use, precisely because they are so transient and liable to change. (And because real, dead-tree review copies and galleys become something of a problem for an active reviewer in short order—you get so many of them, you can’t ethically sell them or give them away, it’s hard to destroy them, etc.)  But I haven’t adopted the practice yet because e-readers aren’t in my price range and the technology behind e-book formats hasn’t settled into any kind of real standard. Once that happens, though, and once the price of the technology comes down under $100, I’ll probably adopt them. Not for my “real” books I want to own—those have a lasting, permanent presence in my life that electronic media just can’t touch. But for better handling the literally dozens of books I am sent every week—a workable e-reader would be a godsend.  And once that happened, then I wouldn’t be adverse to reviewing e-book originals, as long as they met the same editorial standards BiblioBuffet requires of all the books it considers for review.

I also asked our other contributors to weigh in and got these responses:

David Mitchell, who focuses primarily but not exclusively on history, and World War II in particular, was more succinct: “I would not review an e-book unless there were NO bound books available anywhere in the English or French languages. I have tried the Sony Reader, Nook and Kindle. Unless the technology improves materially, I find that I cannot immerse myself in anything on one of those screens.”

Lauren Baratz-Logsted, a prolific children’s and young adult novelist, also has strong feelings that are applicable to reviewers who are also authors: “I’ve never used e-galleys and have no interest in making the switch. I spend all day in front of a computer as it is, writing, and have no wish to read review copies or pleasure reading on yet another electronic screen.”

Author Lev Raphael, is open to the possibility of e-readers but not for reviewing: “I have not been using them yet, and here’s why. I dislike the Kindle, don’t think it’s at all close enough to reading a book. I have, however, liked what I see with the iPad and intend to get the next model, because Apple will have to make one with Flash, HD Video, and a camera. My DroidX has those—why should I buy a reader that does less? I still do like physical galleys and though I can imagine turning to e-books some day, when I purchase the next model of iPad it will primarily be for reading on the road, not for review reading.”

Lindsay Champion, a writer and contributor to various publications, also opposes  electronic reading any  more than she does: “I spend my entire day staring at screens, and I read traditional books to allow my strained eyes to relax. The last thing I want to do is increase the amount of time I look at a computer, Kindle, or other electronic device. If I am considering a book for review, it may be helpful to check out the e-galley first to see if I’m interested in the writing style and subject matter, but when it comes to sitting down and reading the book, I would prefer to read a traditional, printed copy.”

Australian contributor Gillian Polack is actually the only reviewer who does use e-galleys, and the reason is that she is a historian (going for her second doctorate). “I use quite a few electronic reproductions of historical texts in my research. I just gave Nicki an article where I read all the books from downloaded versions. I think that the accessibility of nineteenth century books through libraries online has been a major factor in me being willing to review using electronic galleys,” she noted. As for the books she reviews:

I review using e-galleys, but I way prefer the print version and will choose it whenever I have that option. I also limit the number of e-galleys I’m prepared to accept in a given time—never more than four a month until they’re more reader friendly. I don’t have a dedicated e-reader—just use my desktop or netbook. The netbook means I can take work with me when I travel and settle down to read a review book on the bus. It’s not perfect by any means and my ideal interface is still with dead trees and rags, but if it means someone will let me see a UK or US book I would like to review and that otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to buy locally after release, then I’ll say “yes, please.” In my current to-be-reviewed pile I have five paper books (three academic, two SF) and one e-book. This is a good ratio.

Pete Croatto, who is a longtime reviewer and now focuses on sports books for BiblioBuffet, noted: “Would have to agree with everyone else. I find that I read a book with more depth and care than what’s on a screen. In fact, Nicholas Carr in The Shallows pretty much says as much. Plus, I find that a relationship with a book—whether it’s a galley, hardcover, whatever—is one that’s pretty intimate. And that’s one I’d like to maintain.”

For me, the founder and editor-in-chief of BiblioBuffet, I can say I was one of the earliest sign-ups with NetGalley. But I have no intention of printing out books and sitting down with unbound pages. And while I have had the opportunity to see, admire, and try both a Kindle and the iPad, and I like both, I have no interest in reading on another screen. It’s possible I might do it if I traveled a lot. Even if I did I doubt I would buy fewer books than I do now. It’s important to me to have them in my home. And it’s equally important to have the books I do review in bound editions. I find it easier to make notes, to mark passages, and to remember when I can flip through pages, make mental connections, and check things. (Yes, I realize e-readers can do all these things too, but having done it this way for so long I have to say that practice makes perfect.) But the primary reason I will not review e-galleys is that I want to get away from screens—and temptations like e-mail—when I can.

In addition to our reviewers, our audience seems to favor books over e-books too. But the fact that many of the books are available in both formats is a plus since an enthusiastic review of a good book gives interested readers a choice of format based on their preference—and giving readers what they want is key. To me, that means more choices, not fewer. But as far as our reviewers go? At BiblioBuffet, e-books, whether original or just another version of the paper book, will not be eligible for review consideration. Not now, and probably not for a long time. But we’re not worried. Given what Bowker said about the number of traditional books published in 2009, we have a long way to go before we run out of review possibilities.

And if all that is not a good enough reason to stick to books rather than electronic gadgets, there’s this from writer Diane Lefer:

Several years ago–and this is a warning to all you writers out there–I lost my eyesight for eight months when too much staring at the screen made all the focusing muscles go slack. When I could read, write, and drive again, I began to limit my hours at the screen. This spring, when my right eye started going blurry, I panicked. This time around, the doctor says my muscles are physically fine, but my brain is no longer communicating properly with my right eye. My left eye is good. I limit my hours at the computer. I function.

There really is life and health outside the virtual world. Let’s make sure we keep our hands and eyes as healthy as our minds.

Are We Riding Waves of Literature or Are We Drowning in Crap?

An American Editor is one of the blogs I read regularly if not daily. This past week he has been looking at “e-Books and the Downfall of Literature.” Today, he focuses in on the role literature plays in our society. What struck me in particular was this:

When following the traditional publishing route, an author strives for excellence because the author needs to separate his or her work from that of the masses. The competition for gatekeeper recognition that drives an author to strive for excellence doesn’t exist in the direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet-ebook world. I’m not suggesting that the direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet-ebook authors do not strive to do their best, but rather that the pressure to do whatever it takes to be the best no longer exists; that an author more quickly reaches the point of saying his or her work is good enough. . . . Good enough becomes the great leveler. . . . The standard of good enough is not a high enough standard for literature.

He has one comment so far, which I believe brings up a valid point:

It seems that you are pointing out the loss of our culturally accepted “gatekeepers.”

If you really compare “judgment by the few” (cultural gatekeepers) with “judgment by the many” (Internet feedback and such) you see that neither is better or worse, they are just different. . . . Just because we no longer rely so heavily on professional reviewers and publishers, doesn’t mean we are without means of filtering the influx of literature. The difference is that there is a much broader range of authorities to choose from.

What we have truly lost or are losing is a culturally-shared body of work—or, I should say, we have fragmented into micro-communities with localized “cultural literacies.” But we have gained access to a much broader and more diverse body of literature. So, with loss comes gain.

I believe both points of view are valid and true. Literary gatekeepers—the editors and publishers—do filter out the fine from the flawed. But they also use other filters to choose manuscripts that have little to do with literature and everything to do with business survival such as the bottom line. If it means publishing forgettable but popular books, they do. And it is unquestionable, at least to me, that some manuscripts worthy of becoming Literature are bypassed not because they don’t meet “gatekeeper standards” but because they won’t sell enough.

On the other hand, I miss newspaper book sections far more in theory than in fact. The New York Times has shown its biases for its own writers and for male authors. The Los Angeles Times  was, frankly, boring in many cases. Its reviewers often seemed more concerned with their own self-knowledge than with the book under review. Losing them is a loss to the literary community. But while the world of literary websites, forums, and blogs offering “judgment by the many” may lack the professionalism and standards that “judgment by the few” possess, they have something rarely seen in those newspaper review sections: enthusiasm. Ground-floor passionate enthusiasm for books and reading that encompasses everyone. Many more books get talked about and become known to readers. They are helping to stimulate reading! And no amount of grousing by the “old guard” is going to change that—even thought their standards are worthy of being emulated.

Aside from the interest the article generated for me, I think it is timely. Last week I talked about why BiblioBuffet has a policy of not reviewing self-published or vanity-published books. It really comes down to two reasons: (1) too many books, not enough time, and (2) needles are really hard to find in haystacks. On rare occasions, however, a self-published book (never a vanity one, in my experience) comes along that is breathtaking. Amazingly, I saw two—a coffee-table cookbooks and a book of historical fiction about Somalian immigrants—this past weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. What made me stop was that they were virtually indistinguishable not only from a regular trade book but even from a top-of-the-line publisher like Knopf. I ended up buying one of them there and ordering the second when I got home. These are books I would like to review.

In fact, Nicki and I are currently discussing BiblioBuffet’s current book submission policies. What if anything will happen is unknown. But I see all this change in the publishing industry as creating tidal waves of changes in books. Hopefully, we won’t drown in crap but instead find ourselves riding our literary horizons gently onto the worldwide shores of Literature.

Drowning in Books

Publishers Weekly, the trade journal, noted in a recent article that in 2009 self-published books, which included those issued by vanity presses and micro-niche publishers, reached a staggering 764,448. That’s three-quarters of a million books, and it doesn’t even include the “traditional” books from commercial publishers. That number: 288,355. Not all of the latter are intended for the public; they include textbooks and other specialized publications, but still! Put them together and you are talking about more than a million books published in just one year.

It’s even more astounding when you take into consideration that the number of book readers in proportion to the population is not high. In 2002, the National Endowment for the Arts reported that only 57% of American adults had read a book that year. It hasn’t gotten better since then. According to a poll take in 2007 by Associated Press/Ipsos one in four Americans read no books at all, and that for those who did read the average number was only seven per year.

So while it appears that interest is reading books is dropping off, it is also true that the interest in publishing is growing. Everyone wants to have someone read their writing, thus it should come as no surprise that many turn to vanity-publishing and self-publishing to “get it out there.” The result of those decisions is the focus of this post because despite the Submission Guidelines we have for those seeking to send books to BiblioBuffet for review consideration, we are receiving more e-mails, press releases, and books that are self-published or vanity-published.

We just don’t hear from the authors either. Earlier this week I received an e-mail from a successful publicist whose name is familiar to us. We have reviewed a couple of his clients’ books in the past, and they were good. However, in this e-mail he listed a book that had been published by Lulu, a printer with a good reputation for quality but a printer nonetheless. Anyone can upload anything to Lulu and create a book at a reasonable cost. But it is not a published book, at least by our definition. A published book doesn’t always mean high quality but it does mean that it was professionally edited and produced by a publishing house that thought it had an audience and was willing to put its money behind it in the form of an author advance, editorial guidance, copy editing, professional design, high-end printing, catalog inclusion, review copies, and marketing and publicity. And it will be found in bookstores.

Books printed by vanity  houses and by authors (self-published) may or may not have some of these benefits. If the author is willing to spring for a professional freelance editor and book designer the book will likely be indistinguishable from its commercially-produced competitor. But these are rare because professionals cost money. Lots of money. And relatively few authors have that to spend. So they edit themselves or ask a friend to do it. They might use a drawing or photograph they made, or they use clip art. The nuances that make up a fabulous cover (meaning it “reads” well) are missing because cover design is a highly specialized field. They don’t understand kerning, and leding and the reason behind them. They don’t understand the purpose of genuine editing. The most inexperienced may even still be caught in the “Golden Word Syndrome,” meaning they think that their words are perfect as is. And even if the writers are sufficiently experienced to want and use the best help they can get, they are faced with, as a book publisher once told  me, the fact that “as hard as writing and publishing a book is, it is at least ten times harder to market it.” And she was a successful small commercial publisher who had spent decades honing her writing craft, owning a weekly newspaper, and giving lectures before thinking about opening her own house.

She was, I fear, one of a type that is rapidly disappearing. Both today’s technology and, more worrisome, mindset focused on immediacy encourage writers to think that they can and are entitled to bypass the learning curve that successful writers (and publishers) know they must traverse. They have the “right” to do that, and now they have the ability with the help of technology providers like iUniverse, Lulu, and so on. And when that happens what usually results are books that are no better than a publisher’s slush pile, which mostly range from illiterate to mediocre. Except that they are now in book form.

But what looks like a book, talks like a book, and quacks like a book is not necessarily a book that should show its face in public. But every once in a while—a great while—there is a self-published or vanity-published book that should. It was one of these that the publicist was writing about. The author had credentials, had obtained professional services, and was going about it in exactly the right way. Yet we declined to request a review copy, and I gave the publicist my reason.

Within an hour I received a polite but irritated response wondering why it mattered that the author had used Lulu. I pointed him to our guidelines—which we have had in place the day we opened our doors—and apologized because I recognized that he had a valid reason to be irritated. He has standards too. He represents fine writers. The author was no doubt one. But BiblioBuffet is not going to change its policies for the few because if we did so the floodgates would open to the many. We have enough trouble handling the volume of mail we get now. The thought of 764,448 or more books flooding into us makes me nervous, especially because I have worked with slush piles. To say they are not pretty is an understatement. Read enough of one, and it was make you literally sick. Formatting the slush into book-like forms won’t improve it. So to those few quality authors who elect to self-publish or vanity-publish, I am sorry. Please try a commercial house next time. You won’t end up disappearing in the slush flood. And then we’ll consider your book for review.