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Cox Report: October 2003 |
Jim Cox Report: October 2003
Dear Publisher Folk:
Another month gone by -- another 30 days packed with deadlines, emails, publicity releases, and
more than 1500 books crossing my desk accompanied with letters requesting reviews. In addition,
I've begun a couple of articles relevant to small press publishing that (when finished) will go up on
the Advice For Publishers section of our Midwest Book Review website.
What I most deeply regret is the press of all this upon my available time has led to an inability to
scrounge up the time to be more active with the online publishing discussion groups.
Yesterday I downloaded 468 emails. This morning it was another 273. About two-thirds of these
are SPAM. Most of the rest are from the publisher groups but either the discussion threads are
not in my particular area of expertise or someone else has already nicely answered that book
review/publicity oriented question.
Still, there are rewards for laboring so long and hard on this book review operation which is part
hobby, part profession, part obsession.
I've made the cover of the monthly "Span Connection" newsletter (Volume 8, Issue 9/90,
September 2003). It's a "how to" article I wrote titled "When Pitching Your Book By
Phone".
I've been published in Span Connection several times before -- but I think this is the first time I
"got the cover" as they say in magazine journalism.
Self-Publishing@yahoogroups.com is an online publisher discussion group and the creation of
SPAN (Small Publishers Association of North America) -- and originally started by Marilyn Ross,
then almost immediately and subsequently run by a number of volunteers. I don't believe (if I'm
wrong someone please update me) that it is formally associated with SPAN anymore. But I've
always credited Marilyn with considerable foresight in helping this group get launched.
Another nice little bit of info is our monthly tally of Midwest Book Review website visitors by
robot@freefind.com. In September the total was 2271 Still another indicator of website success is
the number of emails and phone calls which are website generates. Mostly folks are calling for me
to confirm or elaborate on something or other that they've read on our website about some aspect
of the publishing and/or book reviewing process. -- I'm always happy to oblige (time
permitting).
Before moving on to some publishing Q & A, I want to talk a bit about a consistent problem I've
got, month after month, with respect to (largely) the self-published titles that come in here. --
Getting tear sheets (copies of the review) and their attendant publisher notification letters bounced
back to me by the U.S. Post Office because the publisher addresses have become obsolete and
there is no forwarding address that the Post Office can use.
For our August reviews there were six of these. For the September reviews there were five of
these. And I just know that when I start sending out the notification letters for our October
reviews there will be a handful coming back to me as undeliverable.
We generate around 600 to 700 reviews a month -- so you can see that it's only 1% or less that
encounter this problem. But every time I do it's particularly irksome.
The problem is that when the books are reviewed (and the heartbreak is in knowing that each of
these titles passed my initial screening; won a review assignment; were given positive reviews by
our volunteers; which were then subsequently posted on our website and elsewhere on the net, as
well as in the interactive CD-ROM "Book Review Index" that readers, librarians, bookstore folk,
etc. who want to get a copy of that positively reviewed and recommended title from the publisher
will be unable to do so using the snail-mail contact information that is featured as a routine aspect
of our book reviews.
As near as I can figure it out, there are two major causes for this state of affairs:
1. The publisher began with using a Post Office Box number and then after the book was
published, discontinued it.
2. The publisher moved locations between the time their book was published and the time the
book got reviewed -- with no correction of any obsolete addresses printed in the book and no
current address identified as being the new and correct one in the accompanying publicity release
and/or cover letter.
So the reviewer has only one address to work with and no way to know that the address is no
longer in use by the publisher.
I used to go on the net and try to Google the publisher to secure a current address from their
website (assuming they had one). But even then I would just as often not be able to find one -- or
finding one took clicking through several links. -- And just as often there would be no
website.
I'm afraid that nowadays I just don't have the time to invest in that kind of additional and
supplemental online research. So when these undeliverable notification letters are returned, I
simply sigh deeply, and then drop them into the circular file that gets emptied once a day by the
janitorial staff.
The moral of this story is that if you are a self-published author, if you are a small press publisher,
and you have had to move from one address to another -- please be specifically certain that every
piece of correspondence sent to a prospective reviewer about your book clearly identifies your
new address. Half the value (at least!) of getting your book reviewed is the use you can make of
that review in your promotional campaign quite above and beyond that particular reviewer's
forum and/or audience. And if that reviewer's editor can't send you a copy of that review -- then
you've just lost half the value of your investment (review copy + postage + publicity release +
cover letter + your time).
Now for some publisher Q & A -- and please remember that my advice is worth exactly what I'm
charging! :-)
In a message dated 9/19/03 8:28:25 AM Central Daylight Time, mavanlack@ameribase.com
writes:
> When I published the first edition of my non-fiction book I did not bother
> circulating copies of my manuscript in an effort to solicit Pre-Publication
> reviews through the appropriate venues. Now I am in the early stages of
> preparing the manuscript for an expanded second edition of my book. Is it
> appropriate to solicit Pre-Publication reviews for a second edition?
If the new edition is significantly different from the first edition, then go
ahead and send out the usual ARC (advanced reading copies) to reviewers. Be sure that in your
accompanying cover letter and publicity materials you clearly bring to notice that your second
edition is seriously updated, expanded, and/or revised from the first edition.
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
In a message dated 9/18/03 3:33:12 PM Central Daylight Time, Cccjcolgan@aol.com writes:
>I understand that a lot of writers use Pseudonyms. How can they get paid for
>their work if they are not using their own legal name? How do they sign
>contracts/cash cheques, etc?
All banks have a "DBD" provision. DBD stands for "doing businss as". So what the authors do is
sign the pseudonyms (if that's the way the check is made out) and then make a direct deposit into
their personal or business bank accounts.
Incidently, most publishers know the identity of their pseudonymed authors and the checks are
made out to the author's real name -- and the pseudonym is kept as an "in-house" secret as to
what the real identify is as far as the reading public is concerned.
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
Date: 8/5/03 1:49:22 PM Central Daylight Time
From: sandra@nolotech.com
Jim,
Thanks so much for the terrific review of Divorce Solutions by Ed Sherman in the August 2003
Reviewers Bookwatch (Sharon's Bookshelf). I'm sure we at Nolo Press Occidental will be able to
use some great quotes from the review in our promotions, and I will suggest a quote on the back
cover for the next edition. Of course we will attribute any quotes to the Midwest Book
Review.
I have some correction requests for the review, which I know from reading your newsletters that
you welcome. When I sent in the book for review, I included all our contact information, but as
often happens, it seems we got confused with the other Nolo Press (we are separate companies
and Nolo Press Occidental is the publisher of Divorce Solutions).
Here is the correct information:
Publisher: Nolo Press Occidental
Address 501 Mission Street, Suite 2, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
web address www.nolodivorce.com
Phone: (800) 464-5502
Many thanks for your assistance with this, and keep up the great work. I found the info on your
site for publishers to be extremely useful and informative.
Best regards,
Sandra Borland
Nolo Press Occidental
Sandra's email points out three separate issues that I want to underscore as important:
1. Reviewers make mistakes. When that happens, publishers should always seek to have those
errors corrected. In this case, Sandra hit the problem squarely on the head. I routinely review for
Nolo Press (they are a premier publisher of do-it-yourself titles in the field of law and contracts).
When Sandra wrote to me I immediately realized what I had inadvertently done -- I have a
publisher address data base and when I read "Nolo Press Occidental", I did not realize that it was
a different publisher than Nolo Press and so automatically imported the wrong publisher address
into the contact information part of the review.
Fortunately, it was very easy to correct -- and is especially worthwhile doing so in light of our
reviews being held on our Midwest Book Review website for at least one year.
2. Sandra clearly identified what the correct contact information was -- including snail-mail,
website, and toll-free phone number. I didn't have to hunt or peck around. It was right there in an
easy "copy & paste" routine by our webmaster who immediately took care of everything.
3. She didn't have too -- but did you notice how polite and supportive Sandra "sandwiched" the
problem with the ego-boosting info about her planning to use the review and her closing comment
of appreciation.
It made this reviewer simply stop everything else and take care of this little gaff right then and
there. Courtesy and appreciation are contagious!!
Subj: Book Review
Date: 8/20/03 12:37:18 PM Central Daylight Time
Dear Mr. Cox,
I wanted to express my sincerest gratitude for the absolutely wonderful review you did for my
book: Alcatraz - A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years. I was equally ecstatic to learn that
it would be featured on KNLS Bookwatch program.
As unbelievable as it may sound, I am a huge S-Wave fan. Last year I purchased a used a Grundig
"Satellite 800 Millennium" short-wave radio, and have really enjoyed it. I was able to stay up and
catch several of the 1 AM (Pacific Time) programs, which I found very enjoyable.
Thank you again so much. I really do appreciate everything you did for me. I also very much
enjoyed a few of the other titles. Its really a great program...
Kindest Regards,
Michael Esslinger
CoastBooks@aol.com
As some of you new folk might not know, I do a shortwave radio broadcast book review column
called "The KNLS Bookwatch". Once a month I'm called up by the show's producer (who is in
Tennessee) and I speak my review column into the phone (while sitting here in Wisconsin). Mike
records it, adds some intro and exit music, then pipes it to the KNLS studio located in Anchor
City, Alaska. Those folks then beam it all around the world into 124 countries. My ten-minute
book review on-air column is broadcast three times a day at staggered times, and three days a
week, all month long.
The theme is to showcase books on and about American culture, politics, history, and biography.
My audience is rather neatly divided between folks who want to know everything they can about
America -- and those who are just practicing their English language skills!
I get nice little emails from time to time from listeners all over the globe. It has even resulted in
my receiving a small but steady stream of review books from India! I learned that India has a huge
English language publishing industry. One striking difference is that the books (and their
accompanying cover letters) usually have the sweet scent of incense! They are also usually printed
on very thin paper and use very small type.
I draw my reviews from books already reviewed and featured in our online magazine "Internet
Bookwatch". So it is a minimal time investment for me -- and I really enjoy doing it.
And now for my favorite part of The Jim Cox Report --
Unsolicited Testimonials ... with commentary!
Date: 8/9/03 6:52:04 PM Central Daylight Time
Hi, Jim,
Just a quick thank you for sending me a copy of Peter Hupalo's review of my new book,
Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. If every editor were as conscientious as you,
the world would be a much better place.
Shel Horowitz
shel@frugalfun.com
http://www.frugalmarketing.com
I think I trace my compulsive sending out of tear sheets and publisher notification letters to my
early childhood training by my maternal grandmother and her rules about always sending "thank
you" notes when people gave you presents or did something nice for you.
Not only is it gracious etiquette -- it's also darn good business in at least two specific ways:
1. The person being thanked may be in a position to do you a future good.
2. The person being thanked may be so surprised that they'll talk to others about you in a very
favorable light and raise your profile within (as in this instance) the publishing community you
wish to prosper and "network".
Then there's this:
James -
I have to say that your site is the best resource for publishing information I have ever seen. I have
only been in the business for about four years, beginning at Jones and Bartlett Publishers in
Sudbury, MA and now at Addison-Wesley in Boston, MA, however along the way your site has
lent me guidance and suggestions.
Thanks again.
Nathan J. Schultz
Marketing Manager, Computing
A final word:
Our postage stamp appreciation program continues to be a source of great joy and humility for
me. It's easy to send an email "thank you" note. But when folks think so highly of what we try to
accomplish in behalf of the small press community that they are willing to donate stamps "for the
cause" -- well, that's really something special in my book.
Here are some more of the wonderful folks who contributed postage stamps this past month by
way of saying "thank you" and wanting to support our efforts:
Stewart Publishing
Carol Teten - Dancetime Publications
Sue Freeman - Footprint Press
Celeste Bailey - Science2Discover
R. Newman - Labyrinth: A Mythic Journey
W. Royce Adams - Rairarubia Books
The Bluedorns - Christian Logic/Trivium Pursuit
My personal thanks and gratitude to all of these terrific folk. If you'd like to donate postage
stamps as an expression of support, just send them directly to my attention.
Until next time!
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
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