![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Feb. 4th, 2012 04:45 pmMore people seem to get the idea that I love books and enjoy writing about them. This is good. It's also true.
What is not so good (but, alas, equally true) is when I get sent press release material with no indication what it's for. Does my brand-new correspondent want me to talk about the press release (for I'm entirely capable of writing two thousand words analysing press releases, and will no doubt do so in due course), read the book, review the book, analyse it scientifically or linguistically, find all the historical errors and hold them up to grim daylight, congratulate the writer on being published, interview them in one of my round-table sessions?
If you're inclined to write to someone like me (rather than to the publication I work for) then you might want to brave my column first, or my blog, or my biography. It helps to know what I review and how I approach books. It helps me, anyhow, if you know. Also you might wish to give me a couple of words that maybe suggest what you're writing about. If you just send me the publishing data about the book then I will be bewildered.
I should stop complaining. I only get one of these emails a fortnight. Most times I simply assume that the author/editor/publisher meant to put a few words in about how they admire my work as a reviewer and wondered if I'd be interested in seeing this particular book and that somehow those few words were forgotten. I write them my standard "I read everything but only review when I have something to say" regardless of what's in the letter. Today, however, a poor author received a plaintive "What were you really after?"
From the emailed description, I couldn't even tell if it was the sort of book I'd be interested in. If she had written me a small note, I could have seen her style and understood a bit more about her relation to the book and I would have had enough information to make an informed decision. And so I sent her a supportive but confused email. This is because I have a sore throat and a very big week has roller-coasted me and I am short on empathy.
Sharyn reminded me (in a very good blogpost on spoons and chronic illness) that this exhaustion is not in my mind. Still, I feel a bit guilty about my response. Just because my week has been full of 19 hour days (gallivanting with my mother during the daytime and then working at night and in the early morning) and I am short a tooth and all the consequences of this are hitting me today, doesn't mean that I shouldn't have admitted that I rather suspected the writer was asking me for a review.
The moral of the story is that you should not assume that reviewers know what you are thinking (because this writer might have been simply alerting me to the book's existence - my default position is to assume reviews are preferred, but I could be wrong). Also, you should definitely assume that they are at the exhausting end of a tough week and will totally appreciate a few words of explanation. If they aren't at the exhausting end of a tough week, then they will also totally appreciate a few words of explanation.
As a relevant aside, I have now realised that when someone emails me the cover blurb as part of the book's description, I immediately assume the book is not for me. This is nothing to do with the quality of the volume and everything to do with disliking being told what to think. Publishers always send me cover blurbs, but I mostly ignore them. It's harder to ignore when it's the first paragraph of an email. I'd rather know that it's set in the same town the writer grew up in, in rural US or that it's based on an inspiration the writer had while playing with a purple rubber duckie - anything that personalises it. Anyhow, if the book is 'awe-inspiring and exciting' or 'the best novel of the year' or 'a work of genius', then it doesn't need me to evaluate it.
Not that I need this. What I need is a "Dear Gillian - I would like you to consider my book for your column. It's about... It will be released on.... It is my first, second thirty-third novel..."
What is not so good (but, alas, equally true) is when I get sent press release material with no indication what it's for. Does my brand-new correspondent want me to talk about the press release (for I'm entirely capable of writing two thousand words analysing press releases, and will no doubt do so in due course), read the book, review the book, analyse it scientifically or linguistically, find all the historical errors and hold them up to grim daylight, congratulate the writer on being published, interview them in one of my round-table sessions?
If you're inclined to write to someone like me (rather than to the publication I work for) then you might want to brave my column first, or my blog, or my biography. It helps to know what I review and how I approach books. It helps me, anyhow, if you know. Also you might wish to give me a couple of words that maybe suggest what you're writing about. If you just send me the publishing data about the book then I will be bewildered.
I should stop complaining. I only get one of these emails a fortnight. Most times I simply assume that the author/editor/publisher meant to put a few words in about how they admire my work as a reviewer and wondered if I'd be interested in seeing this particular book and that somehow those few words were forgotten. I write them my standard "I read everything but only review when I have something to say" regardless of what's in the letter. Today, however, a poor author received a plaintive "What were you really after?"
From the emailed description, I couldn't even tell if it was the sort of book I'd be interested in. If she had written me a small note, I could have seen her style and understood a bit more about her relation to the book and I would have had enough information to make an informed decision. And so I sent her a supportive but confused email. This is because I have a sore throat and a very big week has roller-coasted me and I am short on empathy.
Sharyn reminded me (in a very good blogpost on spoons and chronic illness) that this exhaustion is not in my mind. Still, I feel a bit guilty about my response. Just because my week has been full of 19 hour days (gallivanting with my mother during the daytime and then working at night and in the early morning) and I am short a tooth and all the consequences of this are hitting me today, doesn't mean that I shouldn't have admitted that I rather suspected the writer was asking me for a review.
The moral of the story is that you should not assume that reviewers know what you are thinking (because this writer might have been simply alerting me to the book's existence - my default position is to assume reviews are preferred, but I could be wrong). Also, you should definitely assume that they are at the exhausting end of a tough week and will totally appreciate a few words of explanation. If they aren't at the exhausting end of a tough week, then they will also totally appreciate a few words of explanation.
As a relevant aside, I have now realised that when someone emails me the cover blurb as part of the book's description, I immediately assume the book is not for me. This is nothing to do with the quality of the volume and everything to do with disliking being told what to think. Publishers always send me cover blurbs, but I mostly ignore them. It's harder to ignore when it's the first paragraph of an email. I'd rather know that it's set in the same town the writer grew up in, in rural US or that it's based on an inspiration the writer had while playing with a purple rubber duckie - anything that personalises it. Anyhow, if the book is 'awe-inspiring and exciting' or 'the best novel of the year' or 'a work of genius', then it doesn't need me to evaluate it.
Not that I need this. What I need is a "Dear Gillian - I would like you to consider my book for your column. It's about... It will be released on.... It is my first, second thirty-third novel..."