Read on Twitter
Yesterday on The World This Weekend, @BBCMarkMardell made an observation about the tiny selection of books that ever get reviewed, compared with the huge amount published. His words will strike a chord with many in the publishing world, especially in indie publishing #WATO
In the studio discussion, a magazine literary editor said smaller publishers struggle to get good books reviewed because they don't have the budget to compete with the big publishers. This is something you quite often hear. With respect, it's not true.
Telling the media about a new book doesn't require much budget. You just need someone to write & send a press release. Before lockdown, you needed to send copies of the book – ie the price of a stamp – but nowadays a pdf will do. The playing field in that respect is pretty level.
It actually comes down to the literary editor's choice of what to include and exclude, and that's not about budget. Shrinking space is a huge consideration. There is also, we would suggest, a media herd mentality: a pressure to review all the books that everyone else is reviewing
The best way to make sure you're doing that is to review all the 'big' releases from the major publishers. So it goes. However, the literary editor also complained that publishers tend towards the safe and don't take as many risks as they used to.
Actually indie publishers take risks all the time. It's just that ours tend not to be the books that get the attention, because literary editors tend not to select them for review. Our books haven't been snapped up at publishing auctions, so they can't be the best ones, right?
Not always, as those literary editors who *do* back our books know. For instance, @theipaper got behind @simonjedge's amazingly original ANYONE FOR EDMUND?, out last week, which combines political satire with medieval history – and is a 99p steal on Kindle https://amzn.to/32dHTOS
And our friends at @Mslexia, @NBmagazineUK and Waitrose Weekend and @TheYorksTimes share our excitement at @molbobolly's debut THE GIRL FROM THE HERMITAGE, an eight-decade saga set in St Petersburg, which is out next Monday
http://eye-books.com/books/the-girl-from-the-hermitage
http://eye-books.com/books/the-girl-from-the-hermitage
We're grateful to all the indie booksellers and the @Waterstones store managers who help bring our books to readers in a crowded market. Across the industry, lots of people are trying their best to offer customers as diverse a range of reads as possible.
But let's quash the myth that big publishers get all the attention because of budget. Of course they deserve lots of attention, because they publish great books. But if they're getting *all* of it, that's because media and retail decision-makers are choosing not to look elsewhere
