Athitakis wrote: 'If the traditional publication process wasn’t meaningful to you, why is the traditional reviewing process meaningful to you?'
I tried to ask if he'd like an answer to his question (even though I was fairly sure he meant it rhetorically), but unfortunately he hasn't been prepared to publish my comment.
Athitakis is talking about reviewing - or rather, not reviewing - self-published books.
He is using a single word - 'traditional' - to force a congruence between two essentially different systems: publishing, which is a means of production (conventionally, the printed book) and distribution; reviewing, primarily a means of evaluation (though of course publicising is also involved).
I could easily expand on the whole matter, but that would be the subject of a rather longish post/piece! I would like to point out, however, that some newspapers are broadening their approach, so it's feasible. Witness the recent columns by the Guardian reviewer Walter Damien, who wrote about self-published and indie weird fiction.
And Athitakis is really missing something by not reading the short stories of Kelly Link, whose own press publishes her work (though no longer exclusively). If he needs encouragement, I'll point out that she's won a number of national and international awards, been included in Best American Short Stories, and has a growing reputation beyond genre boundaries.
Athitakis wrote: 'If the traditional publication process wasn’t meaningful to you, why is the traditional reviewing process meaningful to you?'
ReplyDeleteI tried to ask if he'd like an answer to his question (even though I was fairly sure he meant it rhetorically), but unfortunately he hasn't been prepared to publish my comment.
Publish it here, then, Lee.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAthitakis is talking about reviewing - or rather, not reviewing - self-published books.
ReplyDeleteHe is using a single word - 'traditional' - to force a congruence between two essentially different systems: publishing, which is a means of production (conventionally, the printed book) and distribution; reviewing, primarily a means of evaluation (though of course publicising is also involved).
I could easily expand on the whole matter, but that would be the subject of a rather longish post/piece! I would like to point out, however, that some newspapers are broadening their approach, so it's feasible. Witness the recent columns by the Guardian reviewer Walter Damien, who wrote about self-published and indie weird fiction.
And Athitakis is really missing something by not reading the short stories of Kelly Link, whose own press publishes her work (though no longer exclusively). If he needs encouragement, I'll point out that she's won a number of national and international awards, been included in Best American Short Stories, and has a growing reputation beyond genre boundaries.