Bloggasm

Most people are pretty uptight about talking about how much money they make, but author John Scalzi wrote an entire entry going into extensive detail to how much money he has made writing science fiction: The Money Entry 2007: Science Fiction Income:

2006 was an interesting year for me in this regard, primarily because it’s the first year that, frankly, I’ve gotten any substantial amount of income from science fiction. To bracket this, allow me to note that I’ve been making income off of science fiction since 1999, which is the year that I first offered Agent to the Stars online as “shareware.” So from 1999 through 2006, here’s how the income came down. Note that I’m breaking down the income as to when it was actually received, ie., when I had cash in my hot little hands:

1999: About $400, from Agent readers
2000: About $1000, from Agent readers
2001: About $1100, from Agent readers and a short story sale at Strange Horizons
2002: About $1000, from Agent readers
2003: About $6000, from Agent readers and from first part of advance for Old Man’s War
2004: About $5000, from Agent readers and from first part of advance for The Android’s Dream
2005: About $15,000, from second part of OMW advance, first part of The Ghost Brigades advance, advance for Agent to the Stars hardcover, and short story sale to Subterranean Press.
2006: About $67,000.

As you’ll see from reading the entry, it took Scalzi several years to get to the point he’s at now. It merely shows that one shouldn’t go into science fiction writing expecting to make a full-time living. Even though Scalzi has managed to finally bring in a decent amount, he still has lots of writing jobs on the side in order to provide more security.

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Related posts: Have you broken the law and want to write a book about it? Don’t go to Canada, Wonderful story published at Strange Horizons, Interview with Jessica Stockton from The Written Nerd

In early 2005, over 20 book bloggers banded together to use their combined forces to promote good books that weren’t widely known. This group, called the Litblog Co-op, chooses four books a year — one for each season — and then writes extensively about them on their group blog located at http://lbc.typepad.com/blog/. Since they first started, they’ve managed to get over 1,300 links from bloggers and have a Google Page Rank of 6:

Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to go research the Co-op for an article I was going to write, only to find out that they’ve for some reason been blacklisted from Google and other major search engines.

Anyone who has even a basic understanding of Page Rank and Web Rank would know that with over 1,000 incoming links, many of them with the anchor text of the words “Litblog Co-op,” Googling those words should easily bring you directly to the site. However, when you type “Litblog Co-op” into Google, not only is it not the first result, it doesn’t even show up on the first page.

Confused, I dug deeper into this to try and find out why the correct results weren’t showing up. First, I searched for “Litblog Co-op” on MSN and Yahoo, and as you can see, I got the correct results. Next I searched for it at AOL and Ask.com — both of which use Google software — only to find that they, too, weren’t giving up the correct results.

After this startling discovery, I dug even deeper, only to find out that Google isn’t even indexing the site at all. I unearthed this by searching for specific phrases within quotation marks to filter out all other websites. As you can see, the only thing indexed in Google is the LBC atom feed.

Given the above information, it’s my recommendation that the LBC move their website to a different URL that isn’t blacklisted from Google. If their true goal is to promote these books, then they’ll want the valuable search engine traffic that comes from the three search engines that combine together to make up over 90% of all internet searches. If I were the LBC, I would take this very seriously. Search engine traffic is very valuable.

UPDATE: It appears that the Litblog Co-Op is looking into the issue and they’re possibly going to move to WordPress.

ANOTHER UPDATE: As I initially suspected, there was a no-follow link in their source code which was deflecting Google bots. I emailed one of the Co-op bloggers and they’ve located the no-follow link and got rid of it.

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Related posts: The Writing Life as dictated by Stephen King: Summed up with obscure metaphor, The text-advertising wars, Dear Instapundit, An area of Search Engine Optimization often overlooked: Google News, Interview with POD-dy Mouth, Only days after the whole Facebook “face-lift” controversy, Livejournal introduces a similar feature

During my interviews with lit bloggers, one of my most consistent questions had to do with a blog’s power to promote books. For some reason I’m really fascinated with this discussion, probably because I one day hope to promote a book of my own. There’s something fantastic about the idea of using your blog to have market influence, either on your own stuff or others. You’re essentially a trend-setter, and everyone wants to be a trend-setter.

So John Scalzi links to this Boston Herald article that says that the publishing industry has been too optimistic about a blogger’s ability to sell books. Publishers assumed that thousands of blog readers would turn into thousands of book buyers, but that’s not always the case:

Bloggers, buoyed by site meter numbers and Internet buzz, were the darling of the publishing world about two years ago. But when books hit the shelves, sales fizzled, and now it takes a lot more than a laptop and a blogspot account to make it onto Amazon’s top 100.

“They haven’t performed as well as publishers hoped,” said Boston-based literary agent Jill Kneerim. “It is still a phenomenon that people are hopeful about, but in many cases, people who are fans of the blog have already read the content. So what’s the point in buying the book?”

John Scalzi puts it well when he says:

Being a blogger is a bit like being that lady in the supermarket who hands out free samples. You see her, you stop and have the tiny piece of sausage she’s got speared on a toothpick, you might chat for a second, and then you move on. You like the sample lady — she’s giving you free sausage! — and you may even seek her out (“I could use some free tiny sausage right about now”). But no matter how much you or anyone else likes the sample lady and are glad to see her and her tiny sausage chunks, the number of people who actually reach behind the sample lady to buy the product she’s offering you a taste of is a pretty low percentage.

This should be obvious, though I’d argue that even though the percentage would be small, the blogger would count on that small percentage being a good word-of-mouth campaign for his book. In other words, when bloggers promote their books, they shouldn’t expect to make a ton of money just on their own readers, but use their readers as a seed to gain more readers.

But I think it definitely goes further than that. To me, there are two kinds of blogs I read: Blogs that I read for information and/or breaking news, and blogs that I read for writing skill. The best blogs provide both. But needless to say, both are valuable in their own way. It doesn’t take much thought to figure out which kind of blogger I’d be more willing to buy a book from, though.

Let’s take two recent blogger books as examples. On the one hand, we have Crashing the Gate, by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who owns Daily Kos (I assume you guys don’t need a link?). A lot of reports showed that even though Kos is the most-visited political blog, its sales didn’t exactly shoot through the roof, though there was some actual dispute over the book sales. Still, it wasn’t a huge best-seller, like Kos had predicted it would be on his blog.

On the other hand, we have Glenn Greenwald‘s How Would A Patriot Act?. It quickly jumped to #1 on Amazon right away and also made it onto the New York Times’ Bestseller List.

Why did one book perform better than the other? Especially when Daily Kos has a lot more readers? Well, look at the two sites. For Daily Kos, Markos is only one of several bloggers. In fact, if you count all the Kos diaries, he’s one of several hundred bloggers who work together to bring in the readers. Though the front page is probably what gets the most hits, I’m sure there’s a lot of draw to the diaries as well, especially for search engine love. How many of those readers are coming in to specifically hear what Markos has to say?

Glenn Greenwald’s blog, on the other hand, is only written by one person. When you visit his blog, you’re visiting to find out what he has to say. This is probably key for developing reader-loyalty that will transform into book sales.

Now, let’s look at the posts themselves. Most Daily Kos posts look like this one. As you can see, it’s heavy on block-quotes, in other words, Kos likes to spend a lot of time quoting other people without offering much analysis to it. Kos also has a lot of posts that are full of outgoing links, like this one.

Compare this to the meaty, wordy posts of Glenn Greenwald like this one. Glenn isn’t afraid to use blockquotes or outbound links, but he uses them to provide futher reading outside of his own content. He’s a much more prose-oriented blogger who spends a lot of time on his posts.

Though I haven’t purchased either books, I would definitely put down money for Glenn’s book before I bought Kos’. And apparently this was true for a lot of other people too, because a lot more people bought How Would A Patriot Act?

So I’m still a firm believer in a blog’s power to sell books. It’s the ultimate word-of-mouth on steroids. Studies show that word-of-mouth advertising is the most powerful, so rather than being able to spread good vibes about a book to three or four people, a blogger can spread it to thousands, as long as they trust his tastes.

So if you’re a publisher who’s looking to give a blogger a book deal, look for bloggers who are big on content, because it’s not just the readership that’s the key, but rather why the readers are going to the site.

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As more and more vanity presses have adopted Print-on-Demand technology for their publishing ventures, fewer and fewer reviewers have been willing to even look at Print-on-Demand books, and most book-sellers refuse to even carry them, since POD companies usually don’t allow them to return unsold copies. POD-dy Mouth is a blogger who has decided to move past these industry taboos and review POD titles. She seems to have cornered a niche and at the same time became a champion for quality POD books.

Simon Owens: I guess the first question that needs asking is: Why did you choose to be anonymous?

POD-dy Mouth: Well, I get that question a lot, especially since so many people visit my blog now and I could really benefit from the exposure for selling my own books (over 600+ have offered to buy to date.) But the main reason for being veiled is to avoid getting vengeance reviews on Amazon and BN due to my not reviewing a particular POD title (I’ve had plenty of threats.) Plus, I don’t really want people showing up at my door with books in hand.

Simon Owens: Now, since your main focus is on POD books, does that mean you’re willing to review books that have been vanity-published by people like PublishAmerica? What are some of the best POD presses out there?

POD-dy Mouth: Yes, that is exactly what I do. I refer to POD books, but really I mean anything self-published. Most folks use the print-on-demand method these days because it is affordable (respectively) and fast (also respectively.) Most people drive cars but there are still a few who ride a bike to work. I’m willing to take a look at those books too.

As for rating POD presses, I try to avoid endorsing any one company, but there are a few that clearly stand out. iUniverse and Lulu are companies trying to progress the industry and are ones worth noting. One of the biggest factors in choosing a POD company (perhaps the biggest) is what the price of the books will be in the marketplace. I still to this day do not understand what makes people use a company like Xlibris, where the price of a paperback is $21-$24 and the cost to get the book set-up in the first place is pretty high. On the other end you’ve got PublishAmerica who charges nothing to get set-up but can have a cover price of near $30 in some cases. That’s just silly. And insane.

Simon Owens: Since most POD titles can’t be returned, many books stores refuse to order them. Is there a way to get over this hurdle for POD authors?

POD-dy Mouth: Not really. Book stores rely on the returns model (a bizarre way for publishers to do business) to keep costs (and risk) down. So for them to “invest” in a POD title is very unlikely. The only way around it is for the author to buy the books herself and get an indie bookstore to sell them on consignment. iUniverse and Authorhouse have a few scenarios where they will get some of their titles into various bookstores (Barnes and Noble and Waterstone’s respectively) on a returns basis, but there are qualifiers to what goes in.

Simon Owens: Why do the more-popular POD presses even bother with print-on-demand, when it’s much more economically sound to just have a straight print run?

POD-dy Mouth: Simple: money. The POD presses are making money off of the authors, as opposed to the consumers (readers) like a traditional publisher like Simon & Schuster. POD publishers take no risk. They get their money up front from the author and take a slice from each book sold. There is no risk on their end, though there is little return, too–which is why they need thousands of clients to turn a profit. The only exception I can think of is when iUniverse did a print run of Amy Fisher’s IF I KNEW THEN (and it was a good move since it became a NY Times bestseller.)

Simon Owens: What upcoming POD titles are you looking forward to the most?

POD-dy Mouth: The good ones (*rim shot*). And there are not many, believe me. It is a sad but true statement that 199 out of 200 self-published books are just terrible. But that one out of 200 is what I am blogging about, the ones that got overlooked by New York or were simply too edgy or “unclassifiable” or avant garde. The books I look forward to the most are the ones recommended by other authors. Last year John Mason Skipp, author of Conscience, recommended a POD book by a guy named Jeremy Robert Johnson, titled Angel Dust Apocalypse–and boy am I glad he did. The book (both, actually) were outstanding.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

POD-dy Mouth: That’s a tough one but I would have to say, since most POD authors are using it as a means to landing a commercial deal anyway, some of the main publishing blogs are the way to go, those being: Any of the MJ Rose blogs, Miss Snark, Mad Max Perkins (now abandoned but the old stuff is worth reading), as well as author blogs like Max Barry, Lee Goldberg and Jennifer Weiner. The more stuff a writer can digest from the industry, the better off he or she will be–and so they will see going POD as an option and not a necessity, and certainly not the only way.

Gwenda Bond is working on a novel for teenagers that she isn’t quite ready to talk about yet. She posts often about books and writing at her blog, Shaken & Stirred, writes an advice column for Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet as everyone’s Dear Aunt Gwenda, and co-edits Say… magazine with writer Christopher Rowe. She is a member of the recently formed LitBlog Co-op. She lives in Lexington with Mr. Rowe, who happens to be her spouse-type person, and their pets, Hemingway the Cat, Polydactyl, LLC, and Miss Emma the Dog-Girl, CPA.

Simon Owens: Since you focus a lot on both genre and non-genre work, do you think your blog is effective at getting readers to try genres they don’t normally read?

Gwenda Bond: That is, of course, the hope. I really started the blog to make recommendations (and to stop inundating a certain group of my friends with email links to stuff) and, as a reader, I don’t tend to draw very distinct lines in terms of genre. It troubles me that people may miss something they would love because it’s just in a section of the bookstore they’re unfamiliar with. In a glass half-full way, I tend to believe that a lot of people aren’t afraid to read different genres, they just feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed seeking those books out — this I base on every successful genre novel that’s made easier for mainstream readers to find.

I think I have a reputation as being generous with books, but that’s because I mostly don’t talk about ones I wouldn’t feel comfortable pressing on another person. I try to be as specific about my tastes as possible, so people can tell whether they might like a book I recommend or not. In my little sandbox world, I’m happy if one person reads something I recommend and really loves it — this is the joy of setting low bars: I get at least one email saying that for everything I rec. I am often troubled at how often people need to give caveats about genre books though (really, it’s GOOD!!! PROMISE!!!). A possible corollary to that old hippie phrase: If it’s good, read it.

Simon Owens: Have the other lit bloggers been pretty receptive to a genre blogger?

Gwenda Bond: Absolutely. Zebras, not horses.

Simon Owens: Has the blog helped you in promoting your Say… titles?

Gwenda Bond: Um, I’d say yes to the limited extent that I (or my partner-in-crime Christopher Rowe, the Real Editor) have tried doing so. We definitely got a lot of subscriptions during the drive we held last year. On the other hand, we’re teensy in terms of print runs. What we mostly do is try and get the magazines to those who will really enjoy it — and to the review outlets and best ofs. I don’t think I do much more on the blog than remind people that Say… exists when we drop an issue.

Simon Owens: How do you find most your literary news?

Gwenda Bond: I go to this laundromat and there’s this guy… I used to look more for “news,” but now I point to news stories I just come across and mostly link to other blog content that I want to make sure anyone who reads my site sees. Again, it’s largely to prevent me from inundating those I know with links. Any “real news” I get told about is top secret unless someone specifically tells me I can blog it. I think of myself as person/reader/writer and then blogger is somewhere way down the line. I don’t automatically feel the need to publish everything I’m told about. That just doesn’t interest me. I don’t want to be a news outlet so much.

Simon Owens: Do you get a lot of review copies from publishers? Which publishers contact you the most often?

Gwenda Bond: I get a flabbergasting amount of review copies — flabbergasting to me, anyway. I also get most of the ones I ask for, which is nice. I can’t say I actually break them down by publisher, but I will say that — for me, anyway — mainstream publishers are still way more likely to send books than genre publishers, something that I always find vaguely surprising. (This applies only to books sent to make me happy, not to books I request — I’ve actually never had any publisher turn down a request for a book yet.) Among the smaller publishers that I’ve found to be very good at judging taste and sending things proactively are Coffee House and Unbridled Books, both of which have excellent publicists. We’re also blessed with an excellent library just four blocks away, so I rely heavily on it too.

Simon Owens: Do you tend to nominate a lot of genre books to the Lit Blog Co-op?

Gwenda Bond: Well, I’ve only been a nominator once so far, and I did nominate a genre title, Jeff Ford’s The Girl in the Glass. As a nominator, I’m just looking for a book that readers of the LBC may have overlooked that I think is wonderful. Many, many genres titles are going to fit that criteria, because they are so often off the radar of all but genre readers.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Gwenda Bond: Oh dear. I never know what’s coming out when. A few books I was really looking forward to have just come out and I’m in the process of reading them — Jeff VanderMeer’s Shriek, Andrea Seigel’s To Feel Stuff, Geoff Ryman’s The King’s Last Song, Julie Phillips’ Tiptree biography. I’m very much looking forward to Cecil Castellucci’s next novel Beige , Holly Black’s Ironside and Justine Larbalestier’s Magic’s Child (oddly, all YA); there aren’t even ARCs I can covet of those yet. Of things getting ready to come out, I would recommend any of the above, plus M.T. Anderson’s Octavian Nothing: Volume 1 and John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (more YAs). Oh, and David Levithan’s new one. I also can’t WAIT for all the original anthologies Ellen Datlow has in the works. Or for Karen Joy Fowler’s next novel (!), or John Kessel’s or Kelley Eskridge’s, for that matter–but, sadly, these don’t exactly exist yet, though I understand all are in the works. On the upside, Nicola Griffith’s next Aud novel has, according to Wiscon news, been turned in, so that one should be forthcoming (if not soon enough). I’m going to kick myself for leaving something out, I just know it.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Gwenda Bond: I think everybody reads the obvious ones (Maud Newton, Ed Rants, the Mumpsimus, Tingle Alley, etc.). I love Jeff Bryant’s Syntax of Things and Carolyn Pinkhaus’s Pinky’s Paperhaus (and both of them just joined the LBC recently). Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray and Jenny Davidson at Light Reading are two of my absolute faves. I also love Rarely Likable and wish she’d post more–and Jay Tomio’s Bodhisattva is great. But I read way too many. Please, check out the blogroll and read the cutesy tags. In case Gavin blogs consistently now that he has a real one, I’ll say him too. And the more personal blogs of Chance Morrison, Meghan McCarron, Dave Schwartz and David Moles. That’s way too many, I know. Damn. I’m such a rec-whore.

Matt Borondy is addicted to highways, casinos, books, and monasteries, and his grand ambition is to create a mobile home/poker room/Zen center/internet cafe that holds author readings in random cities across the world. Since his efforts to drum up venture capital for that project have mysteriously failed, he focuses instead on editing the online magazine Identity Theory, with the help of over a dozen other eclectic book junkies and failed venture capitalists. Identity Theory publishes interviews with authors and musicians, hosts a social justice blog and a book blog, and offers regular doses of original fiction, nonfiction, visual art, poetry and reviews. New stuff goes up on the site every week day, as if by magic.

Simon Owens: Identity Theory has been around since 2000, which is a long time in internet years. Did it always use a blog-type format?

Matt Borondy: I guess it depends on what you mean by blog-type format. From a technological standpoint, the overall site doesn’t function like a blog–it’s a much more static, handmade sort of thing, though we do house some actual blogs. From a content standpoint, I guess we’ve always been blog-like in the sense that we are informal and regularly published and liberal in our use of hypertext.

Simon Owens: As someone who heads one of the older literary sites, how effective do you think book blogs are at promoting books? Do you think they’ll eventually be able to create new trends in publishing?

Matt Borondy: Publishing houses seem sold on the idea of viral marketing via the Internet, so I’d assume it’s working out for them. It’s such a low-cost, high-reward medium: low cost for the Web publishers, high reward for the publishing houses. I just wish it were the other way around so that I could buy a new car. Here at Identity Theory we take advantage of the minimal overhead and vast reach of Web publishing to give serious writers a chance to talk about their craft for a countless number of pages, and to help publish and promote younger, lesser-known writers who otherwise would have great difficulty getting attention from mainstream press. That’s why I started the site and why it has continued to thrive. As far as trends in publishing, I just pray to God with whatever religious faith I have left that I never, ever come across another book that attempts to recreate what Abe Lincoln’s blog would have been like.

Simon Owens: How hard is it to work with an all-volunteer staff? Do you find it hard to keep the troops motivated?

Matt Borondy: The Identity Theory staff is a wonderfully diverse group–geographically, ethnically, and ideologically–and they’re all very cool and into our project. For me the challenge in working on the site—and this is one that they probably share—is that publishing a website involves a heavy dose of abstract and self-invented responsibility. I have to remind myself, while staring into the abyss that is this monitor, that there are real people reading the site, that the writers we’re publishing, interviewing, and reviewing are real, and that what we do has some effect on the literary community and the world in general. Anytime you work with people who are far away and work on something that is not tangible and that can be made to appear or disappear with the click of a mouse, there’s a challenge of connecting your work with your reality–if that makes sense. So, there’s always a struggle with motivation, which can typically be eliminated with a heavy dose of caffeine.

Maybe someday I’ll set Identity Theory up like Project Mayhem in “Fight Club” or like an old monastery, where I’ll make a headquarters in an abandoned house and force potential staff members to stand outside for three days without food, water, or encouragement, and then eventually let the persistent ones in and have them shave their heads and wear black all the time while reading fiction submissions and coordinating book reviews. That would ensure that everyone we get is 100% motivated from the start.

Simon Owens: How did you get the prizes for your raffle fundraiser? Were they donated?

Matt Borondy: The writers I was working with at the time of the fundraiser, people like Scott Snyder and Mia Fontaine and Toni Schlesinger as well as our own Christian Bauman, were nice enough to donate books to the raffle. Some of the other raffle prizes were totally random: while on vacation in L.A. I saw that Douglas Coupland was doing a reading in Beverly Hills, so I had him sign a book (which I accidentally walked out of Dutton’s without paying for, Winona Ryder style, but then went back in and purchased). As a last-minute thing, I thought it’d be cool to offer one of the winners a chance to be interviewed on the site, which was free. Other prizes came from my wallet and various other sources which election-year politics prevent me from mentioning. Next time around I will be more aggressive about having all the prizes donated—this particular raffle was more of a virtual party than a fundraiser, so it wasn’t entirely profit-driven.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Matt Borondy: I’m waiting for someone to give Robert Birnbaum a book deal. And I’m wondering when the heck Alex Shapiro is going to stop messing around on Pandora and finish his first book of fiction. Aside from that, I have too much of a backlog to look forward to upcoming books. Anyone who reads Identity Theory or your site should check out “The Beginning Writer’s Answer Book”, edited by the magnificent Jane Friedman.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement your own?

Matt Borondy: If I had gone to elementary school with Claire Zulkey and Maud Newton I would have chased them around the playground endlessly, leading to broken hearts and who knows what else—maybe a restraining order or two, some hours in detention. But since we’re adults living in different states I have to settle for reading their weblogs and wishing I could be as smart and tuned in as they are. Claire’s interview archive is great, and Maud has, I think, the best blog out there. Neal Pollack’s The Maelstrom is entertaining—he’s a writer who fits the medium well. And I have a lot of respect for what the people at MobyLives are doing, as well as the Bat Segundo Show, a literary podcast published on Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant. That makes five, right? Can I add one more? Go read Fungible Convictions.

Jessica Stockton is the Book Nerd behind the blog The Written Nerd. She worked in coffee houses, publishing houses, literary agencies, and as a freelance writer before discovering her true calling as an independent bookseller. A native of California, she graduated from New York University with an English degree in 2001 and now lives happily with her fiance in Brooklyn. Jessica currently works on store publicity and design at McNally Robinson Booksellers in SoHo and writes reviews for Publishers Weekly, and she will join the board of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association this fall. Her goal is to open a fabulous independent bookstore and performance space in Brooklyn within the next few years, with its very own store blog.

Simon Owens: Do you think that working in a bookstore adds a unique perspective to your lit blogging?

Jessica Stockton efinitely! I think every lit blogger comes from a unique perspective, and mine is that of a bookseller. I’ve written a bit about how bloggers and indie booksellers come from a similar place, in that they build trust in their readership (or customer base) by being honest about the books they love, and in that their success is totally dependent on building relationships. Independent bookstores are an alternative to corporate chain bookstores, as blogs are alternatives to mainstream online media — the showcasing of individual voices.

I want to blog as an independent bookseller as much as a reader or writer — to talk about the issues we face, our strengths and enthusiasms, and the imporance of the independent bookstore in the book world. I’ve found that a lot of the readers of my blog are people in the book industry, and some of them may be people who don’t read litblogs regularly — they’re just curious about what one of their own has to say. This is kind of inspiring, as I’m hoping to inspire new collaborations between the blogging world and the book world, and foster the kinds of conversations that the internet is uniquely capable of creating.

Simon Owens: How did you become a freelance writer for Publisher’s Weekly? Do you ever grow frustrated that they don’t use bylines when they publish your reviews?

Jessica Stockton: I happened to mention to a customer that I was looking for freelance work, and they passed my name along to someone in the PW editorial department. I’ve been doing it for about three years now — longer than many of their reviewers last, I think! I appreciate the writing practice and the access to new books that the job gives me, but it’s not one that offers a lot of money or prestige, and that’s okay. I have gotten my name on a couple of author interviews I did for PW, which is always exciting. I thought for a while the PW gig would be a first step into a glamorous reviewing career, but since my career focus is much more on bookselling now, I’m pretty content to review anonymously as long as I get good stuff to read. (Not that I’d object if anyone wanted to offer me a reviewer gig…)

Simon Owens: Have you nominated anything to the Lit-Blog Co-op yet?

Jessica Stockton : Everyone gets to take a turn nominating, and since I just joined this summer (and won’t be posting until the fall round of books), my name hasn’t come up yet as a nominator. But don’t worry, I will….

Simon Owens: If you had to pick any small presses that you wish the big publishers would emulate, which would you choose?

Jessica Stockton : Small Beer Press, run by writer Kelly Link and her husband, is one that I greatly admire. They’re willing to take risks and aren’t afraid of the convergence of electronic and print media — they post some of their stories online in hopes of creating word of mouth, and have found that it increases, rather than decreases book sales. They also only publish a small list of really good stuff, which they can choose to do as they don’t have to answre to shareholders.

New York Review of Books’ beautiful reissues of lost classics are one of the most valuable things to happen to publishing in the last few years. I wish larger publishers would take a look at their backlist and bring some of their older titles back into print, not in a cheap print-on-demand format but with the care NYRB lavishes on those little-known old books. They’ve grasped the Long Tail theory: sell less of more (lots of titles that only sell a few copies each), rather than focusing every bit of time and money on the few big bestsellers (that get returned half the time anyway). There are a number of small presses that are doing that, and I hope big publishers will start to see the light.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Jessica Stockton: Richard Powers has a new book coming out in the fall — I haven’t seen it yet, but he’s one of my favorite authors and I’m really excited about it. Susanna Clarke, who wrote the fabulous Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, is working on a new massive fantasy novel that I’m sure will be awesome, but in the meantime she’s publishing a collection of stories set in the same world, also this fall.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Jessica Stockton: If you’re interested in blogs from booksellers (and others in the book industry), these can’t be beat — they’re my first clicks when I have time to read blogs!

Fresh Eyes — Robert Gray, formerly of Northshire Bookstore, currently running Fresh Eyes Now

Bookseller Chick — an anonymous bookseller at a chain store in California, who’s taught me that yes, chain bookstores have smart readers too

Book Dwarf — Megan Sullivan of Harvard Bookstore, great bookseller and linker

Episode Soldier — Aubrey of Arches Book Company in Moab, Utah, a newbie blogger but a great writer and reader

Publishing Insider — Carl Lennertz of HarperCollins, former American Booksellers Association employee, wide-ranging and clever links