 |
Book Reviews,
Book Lover Resources, Advice for Writers and Publishers |
| Home / Jim Cox Reports / Jim Cox Report: August 2018 |
Jim Cox Report: August 2018
Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:
One of the questions I'm occasionally asked is why did I put onto the Midwest Book Review web site a section called "Other Reviewers". Aren't those book reviewers, book review publications, and book review resources listed there in direct competition with us? Why would we go out of our way to make them known and accessible to authors and publishers?
The answer is simple. The Midwest Book Review was founded in 1976 to be an educational and instructional resource for any author and any publisher wanting help in bringing their particular book to the attention of their intended readership and/or audience -- including librarians and bookstores, as well as the general reading public. The fact that this is also the basis for our receiving two annual foundation grants is not coincidental.
In addition to our own vetted listing of reviewers and review resources to be found at:
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/othr_rev.htm
I want to give you a little online searching tip to create and then increase your own database of thematically appropriate reviewers for whatever your book project requires for its marketing program, using the DuckDuckGo search engine.
For example, if you have a Christian book that you would like reviewed for a Christian community of seminaries, clergy, or laity here is a link that you will find invaluable:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Christian+Book+Reviewers&t=ffab&ia=web
If you have a cookbook to be reviewed:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Cook+Book+reviewers&t=ffab&ia=web
How about a reviewer for your 'Great American Novel'?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Fiction+Book+Reviewers&t=ffab&ia=web
Perhaps it's a children's book that needs reviewing?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Children%27s+Book+Reviewers&t=ffab&ia=web
The trick to building up a thematically oriented reviewer databases is a simple one. Just do a Google search by putting in a particular Genre along with the words Book Reviewers into the search box and you are certain to come up with a list with which to begin the process of securing a review for your book from a thematically appropriate reviewer. For example, if it is a science fiction book, into the Google search box put in the words: Science Fiction Book Reviewers.
And to conclude my little instructional on the subject of making a book reviewer database, I want to make sure you read this little article by a friend of mine on "Book Reviews & Reviewers" -- it won't take but a couple of minutes or so.
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/bookrev.htm
As I've often mentioned before, one of the perks of having had the honor of being the Editor-in-Chief of the Midwest Book Review is the receiving and sharing of insights into the operations of the publishing industry -- including such fundamental aspects as marketing and promotion that are at the heart of a successful literary career for authors and a successful financial enterprise for publishers. Toward that end I've had added four new instructional articles that will prove to be of immense and 'real world practical' value:
1. Book Marketing: Advertising Challenges
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/advertisingchallenges.htm
2. The Excellent Writer Within
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/writerwithin.htm
3. Five Tips for Writing in a Literary Collaboration
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/literarycollaboration.htm
4. Selling Books To Libraries
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/sell2libraries.htm
Now on to reviews of new books with particular relevance and interest for authors and publishers:
The Writing/Publishing Shelf
Writing In America
John Fischer & Robert B. Silvers, editors
Rutgers University Press
106 Somerset St., 3rd Floor, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
9780813598451, $34.95, HC, 200pp, www.amazon.com
In the fall of 1959, Harper’s Magazine published a special supplement on the state of writing and the American literary scene. The supplement was greeted with a broadside of commendation and a fusillade of cavil, and has since become recognized as the most useful brief survey of the contemporary state of the American writing arts and of their fellow travelers, the spoken word, the typescript word, the filmed and televised word, and the publishing memorandum.
Collabortively compiled and co-edited by the team of the late writer and editor John Fischer (1910-1978) and the late Robert B. Silvers (1929 - 2017) who was an editorial board member for Harper’s Magazine and co-founder and editor of The New York Review of Books from 1963 to 2017, "Writing in America" is once again available to a new generation of writers in a newly reissued volume in the Rutgers University Press 'Classics Imprint' series.
"Writing in America" will prove to be as stimulating today as it was in 1960. Here, writers including Robert Brustein, Stanley Kunitz, and C.P. Snow examine the state of writing in American novels, films, and television candidly and critically. The result is a collection of essays that showcase a first-rate and highly entertaining piece of reporting on the American literary scene that resonate in 2017.
Critique: A true classic offering timeless yet timely commentaries and insights into the art and craft of writing, "Writing In America" is unreservedly recommended to the attention of anyone who aspires to a career in writing or who is a dedicated student of contemporary American literature. While especially and particularly recommended for community and academic library American Literary Studies collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Writing In America" is also available in a paperback edition (9780813598444, $17.95).
Finally -- Here is "The Midwest Book Review Postage Stamp Hall Of Fame & Appreciation" roster of well-wishers and supporters. These are the generous folk who decided to say 'thank you' and 'support the cause' that is the Midwest Book Review by donating postage stamps this past month:
Bruce Perrin
Roderick Lacy
Nanette Avery
Andrea Krelitz
Merritt Graves
Judith Martialay
Reena Kumarasingham
Barry Connolly -- "Serah"
Gabriel Houck -- "You or a Loved One"
Carol Stevens -- "Sky's Amazing Dream"
Joan K. Lacy Alazo -- "A Shadow Away"
David Grant Urban -- "A Line Intersected"
Maureen Paraventi -- "The New Old Maid"
WordTech Communications
Ginny B. Heenan -- eB1 Press
Larry E. Jorgensen -- G & L Management
Sandy Smith -- Smith Publicity
Barbara C. Wall -- The Barrett Company
Elizabeth Waldman Frazier -- Waldmania!
In lieu of (or in addition to!) postage stamp donations, we also accept PayPal gifts of support to our postage stamp fund for what we try to accomplish in behalf of the small press community. Simply log onto your PayPal account and direct your kindness (in any amount and at your discretion) to the Midwest Book Review at:
SupportMBR [at] aol.com
(The @ is replaced by "[at]" in the above email address, in an attempt to avoid email-harvesting spambots.)
If you have postage stamps to donate, or if you have a book you'd like considered for review, then send those postage stamps (always appreciated, never required), or a published copy of that book (no galleys, uncorrected proofs, or Advance Reading Copies), accompanied by a cover letter and some form of publicity release to my attention at the address below.
All of the previous issues of the "Jim Cox Report" are archived on the Midwest Book Review website at www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/jimcox.htm. If you'd like to receive the "Jim Cox Report" directly (and for free), just send me an email asking to be signed up for it.
So until next time -- goodbye, good luck, and good reading!
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
Copyright ©2001
Site design by Williams Writing, Editing &
Design