Review Copy Requests, E-book Style
Today was a great day. I got my FIRST ever review copy request from a reviewer…for their Kindle. And I loved it! Within five minutes of receiving the email, our transaction was completed. No grabbing a press release, searching for a review copy, searching for the correct size jiffy, filling out a label, adding postage…you get the picture. All I had to do was hit reply, insert, and I was finished! And instead of having to wait a week (or more) for the postal system to media mail that package to Cali, the reviewer could start reading right away. It was a dream.
This might sound a bit lazy, but I HATE mailing out review copies. I know it’s necessary, and I am thrilled when it’s a big name reviewer who’s asking, but imagine having to go through that process 5 to 10 times a day. And then repeating it when the book never arrives…as happens more than it should. Not to mention all the trees (and money) this uses up.
So here’s what I’m hoping for: sometime in the near future, all reviewers are going to take this route. That instead of doing mailings, I’ll be able to e-blast out PDFs. Instead of printing countless packets of press materials, these will simply go as attachments. And reviewers, instead of sorting through piles of books, can just open their email, skim, and either download or delete. Think how much easier it would be for all of us!
So, please, reviewers. Buy an e-reader. Save the planet. Save both of us time. And may none of us ever have to deal with the pain of a jiffy papercut again.
Posted
on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
February 19th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I, for one, am thrilled that you — oh publisher — are offering this option. If only everyone shared your lazines :). Every day, the nice UPS and FedEx folks bring me lots of envelopes full of books (generally one book per envelope) and I know I can’t read everything, but I hate that I have to get rid of the books to make room for more.
Now that Firebrand has bought NetGalley, I have high hopes for even greater things with electronic review copies. I prefer to get my books that way (and oh yes, saving the environment is a big issue for me).
February 19th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Smart women read ebooks.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
As an editor, I’m looking forward to not having to open, file and then later throw away the hundreds of galleys we get each month and can’t review. Talk about wasting trees!
February 20th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Amen!
February 21st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
oh frabjous day!
and oh brave new world!
and I don’t mean any of the above in the slightest bit ironically for a change…
March 4th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Hey, this is an excellent post, I really enjoyed the content. Please don’t stop I look forward to reading more!
March 5th, 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] from Soho Press blogged the other week about emailing a book to a reviewer. As Sarah points out, this saves loads of time, money and trees. Not to mention space — [...]
March 5th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
A reviewer requested just recently that I email him a PDF of my author’s gally, and the publisher was hesitant to send him an electronic copy for fear it would be used/abused in some way. Do you have an opinion about this? I would prefer adopting the process you blogged about because it would in fact be much easier and save tons of time, trees, headaches, etc. Not to mention I have about 40 more galley copies to get rid of in the next week before they become obsolete.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Is there a way to writ the writers? Maybe make a recommendation on something we’d want reviewed?
March 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Now that the Kindle has an iPhone app, I’d be thrilled to get review copies in electronic format rather than physical books. But how does that work? I was under the impression that you couldn’t send/buy someone a Kindle book.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Ah wait. It looks like you emailed a PDF to their Kindle, which the Kindle can read but the iPhone app cannot. So I’m still out of luck.
April 25th, 2009 at 5:10 am
mm. love it.