I was discussing possible five year plans with the boss (Alvina, I’ll be contacting you soon about the Denver program), and after I laid out my thoughts my boss laughed and said, “Admit it, you’re doing it for the free books.”
I’m so transparent.
We’re all going to miss them: the free ARCs, the advanced access to the street dates, the odd titles that happened to make their way into the store, and being able to check any of these out if we wanted without necessarily having to buy them. I’ll miss opening the boxes and discovering books I’d never even think to search out or a highly awaited title. I’ll even miss the Manga kids who would start appearing in our store early on shipment day to ask, “Anything new?”
The boss and I are trying to convince one of our Manga experts to start her own online Manga store. We’ve got a list of over a hundred emails for her to use (collected for a store Manga newletter that never quite got off the ground), and some of those people regularly came in and dropped fifty or sixty dollars weekly on her recommendations alone. If nothing else I’m hoping I can convince her to set up her own Amazon store in conjunction with the MySpace she promised to run for the kids so that she can make some money off the whole process.
We’re all in a state of wondering (what are we going to do next? Why? How?), and any inkling of planning seems like a giant step forward. Still, while I’m waiting for coworkers’ resumes that I can fax around to my company and others, and still figuring out what I should write on my own (how does one catalogue seven years with one company in a variety of job titles), I’d like to do something that I can look at and say, “I did that.”
Which is where you come in. Noticed any broken or old links in the sidebar lately? Let me know so I can change them. Come across some fantastic new reader/writer/publishing blogs or sites lately? Let me know. Did I even know that Nancy Pearl had a wiki or what? Yeah, I’m behind on getting it up. Sorry. Sheesh.
Oh, and any suggestions you have on who I should contact about getting the coworkers signed up as book reviewers to receive ARCs would be greatly appreciated. They’ll gladly spread the book word via online if they don’t stay in the business.
Yeah, sometimes I think they’re only in it for the books too.
6 comments:
Re: your comment, "I'd like to do something that I can look at and say, "I did that."
Your post of yesterday was beautiful and you did that.
Too bad it can't go in a resume. (Or could it?)
When your plans are frustrated, all that energy has to go somewhere :).
I've been reading Kit Whitfield's blog lately. She's a British writer who used to be an editor, so she can talk about both sides of the issue. I believe I first heard about her from the Snark.
Check out http://www.simegen.com/agreements/revagr.html especially if willing to review from advance electronic copies. They have excellent guidelines that show just how to do a review.
For those who already have blogs and are interested in reviewing contact some of the small publishers who publish in your preferred genres. Small publishers are usually very willing to work with new reviewers.
http://epress-online.com is one place. Send a querie to questions at epress-online.com with ATTN: MTZ
Good list of publishers at http://www.epicauthors.org/pubcorner.html
Another at http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/publisherlist.htm
Good luck. MTZ
As for your question of catlogueing one company many titles - one placement place I worked with rejiggered my resume to say: [company name]1997-Present
And then put the job titles underneath. She felt it was important to demonstrate my company loyalty up front. Just a little suggestion.
One of the best things that has happened since I became involved in the publishing industry was free books. I freely admit to my addict tendencies. However one downside- now I actually BUY more. No idea how that happened.
You're a terrific writer. Why don't you try to be a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, et al? I hear that reviewers have more free books than can fit in their mailbox every day.
Post a Comment