Fifteen Eighty Four

For a unique window into what we go through in the publishing industry, even as book review sections and reviewers are slashed left and right, The Guardian’s Book Blog:

There are many zany tactics adopted by publishers and authors to get their books noticed, but how about giving them away for free? John Warner, chief creative tsar of struggling independent publisher TOW Books, is so sick of sending his books out to newspapers and magazines and television shows for review, and hearing nothing back, that he’s decided to give up on the media and send books directly to his readers.
(Behind the decision there is also perhaps a measure of ennui for booksellers, too, after a passing gag he made about a ridiculous preposterous novelty book was taken at face value and generated significant interest from retailers.)
“Really, if you think about it in this day and age of Amazon and blogs and Facebook and MySpace, and LibraryThing, and Shelfari, everyone has a public forum where they can express their opinions,” he writes. The only thing he is asking in return “is that you say something somewhere about them, even if it’s along the lines of ‘U think ur funny, but u suck’.”

For an insider’s look, see John Warner’s own account of what it’s like, and TOW probably sends out more publicity copies than we do. But as he summarizes, books don’t stick to walls when thrown at them, and the wall has many book-sized holes in it.