Steven Sills has published three books with Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) . I didn't know until Steven sent me an e-mail awhile back that Project Gutenberg published original work. I thought they only published classics. Tells you what I know.
Michael Hart, the man who founded Project Gutenberg, tells me in an email that of the 15,400 eBooks at gutenberg.org, about 3 percent — some 500 books — are there “with the permission of the authors/copyright holders.” He also says that there are original works at gutenberg.cc as well — he guesses about 500 more.
I haven’t read Sills’s books and I can’t really review them. Since this blog is supposed to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at a book review editor’s world, this is a good opportunity to explain what The Inquirer does and doesn’t review and why. We don’t review eBooks, or print-on-demand (POD) books, or self-published books, including books by AuthorHouse or PublishAmerica or even Xlibris — which is part-owned by Random House.
This is not out of snobbery. If a publisher like Farrar Straus & Giroux decides to publish somebody’s manuscript, they assume the costs of printing and publicity. They are betting on that manuscript and putting their money up accordingly. In all the other cases, it is the author who is putting up the money and betting on himself or herself and his or her work. It is the fact that someone besides the author is willing to assume the risk of publishing that makes all the difference. After all, it’s hard enough to decide which books to review as it is. I believe that something like 175,000 books are being published by trade publishers annually now. The Inquirer reviews about 500 of them. In other words, most don’t make the cut.
There’s an opportunity here, though. With all the bloggers out there, maybe some people could start looking at these other books and reviewing them online. It’s a pretty safe bet that among all those other books are some — maybe a lot — worth reading. After all, there have been some pretty good self-published books. Leaves of Grass, for instance. All of William Blake’s books.
Here are links to Steven Sills’s books:
American Papyrus http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4545
Corpus of a Siam Mosquito http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5176
Tokyo to Tijuana: Gabriele Departing America http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12733
The policy is the same at the Chicago Sun-Times, which I review for in addition to the Inquirer.
ReplyDeleteI don't know of any major newspaper that does any differently.
Frank,
ReplyDeletePOD is a technology and does not necessarily mean a book is self-published. A lot of small presses are using POD technology to lower costs. Yeah, some of these small publishers are simply vanity houses in disguise, but not. Btw. You recently published a glowing review for Secret Dead Man whose publisher relies exclusively on POD technology (but is still extremely selective on what they publish).
Dave Zeltserman
Once again, we discover that I am not omniscient. The book mentioned seemed well worth reviewing, so it doesn't bother me that it got through the semi-permeable membrane that passes for my mind. The question, I guess, is how does one differentiate those worth taking a look at from those that aren't?
ReplyDeleteFrank,
ReplyDeleteI think you have to look at the publisher as opposed to the technology the publisher uses. Yes, there are "fake" publishers that use POD technology (fake in that it is really a group of authors self-publishing their own work) but there are also legitimate and extremely selective publishers using POD technology. Point Blank Press, which published Secret Dead Men (and also published my own first novel FAST LANE, which has received rave reviews from those willing to look at it, including making several of Poison Pen Bookstore's Best of 2004 lists) is one of those extremely selective publishers, who along with publishing a few first-time authors also publishing crime fiction heavyweights like James sallis, Ed Gorman, Gary Phillips, Bill Pronzini, etc.)
I don't know what the solution is, but it would be a shame for newspaper reviewers to ignore books from legitimate publishers like Point Blank Press just because of the technology that they're using.
Dave Zeltserman
(if interested you can see more of Point Blank's lineup and comments their books have received at http://www.pointblankpress.com)
Frank,
ReplyDeleteBtw. If you'd like more thoughts of mine on this subject (one that's near and dear to my heart), feel free to contact me at davezelt@comcast.net
Dave Zeltserman
Willis:
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. But the issue I raised earlier wasn't about published vs. self-published, it was whether publishers who use POD technology should be ignored by reviewers. How big does a publisher have to be or how much of an investment do they need to make in a book before the book shouldbe deemed reviewable?
Dave Zeltserman
My own ideas are that as long as an author has had a book reviewed by a newspaper reviewer of some national stature and his material is of a serious nature that reviewers must then see him and his oeuvre as worthy of being reviewed. With that said, of course qualified reviewers of literary works need to be online
ReplyDeleteHey people, let's keep this thread going and get others involved. This is a very interesting topic that too few people have addressed at all. We hear, again and again, how people aren't reading enough. Actually, I think worries about the decline in reading are exaggerated; for one thing, more and more people are listening -- to audio books, which isn't the same, but isn't so bad, either. At any rate, whether people are reading more or less or about the same, they sure are writing. And that seems to me to be important and deserving of our attention.
ReplyDeleteFrank brings up an interesting point... I don't know if people are reading less, but they sure seem to be writing more. The number of books that are published by non-vanity presses is staggering. When you add in all the self-published/vanity stuff, the numbers are extraordinary.
ReplyDeleteI get so many books submitted for review that I couldn't read all of them (much less write about them) if there were 10 of me.
I wrote newspaper reviews of 56 books in 2004 and even that wasn't but a fraction of the books I saw.
You make an interesting point, Willis, but I don't believe there is a large reservoir of excellent unpublished books out there. It's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks, regardless of the system, but I think that, if a book has quality, it will find a publisher.
ReplyDeleteBut doesn't the rise of small presses and other alternatives to the traditional forms of publishing demonstrate that these books are being published?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that it is harder than ever for a good MS not to be published -- and, unfortunately, all too easy for crappy ones to see print as well.
Here's a very incomplete list of self-publishers:
ReplyDeleteWalt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Blake, Henry Adams, Ezra Pound, e. e. cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Gertrude Stein, Anais Nin, Carl Sandburg, Stephen Crane, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Paine, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Michel de Montaigne, Alexandre Dumas, Derek Walcott, Upton Sinclair, James Fenimore Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Hayden....
http://www.fglaysher.com/mission_of%20earthrise_press.html
"Publishers' role as the gatekeepers of quality has always been dubious... the only thing maintaining publishing's quality-control role is the carefully manicured perception that self-publishing is anathema to aspiring professional authors. Publishing, through its marketing plans and budgets, today effectively controls who sees what book. But the grip of the industry's role of gatekeeper is about to go."
http://www.fglaysher.com/Post_Gutenberg_Publishing.html