Chasing down the gossip that a consortium of big publishers are brewing a new strategy for distributing Sony Readers to book reviewers brings to mind that REO Speedwagon song:
Heard it from a friend who/ Heard it from a friend who/ Heard it from another you’ve been messin’ around.
Everyone I called admitted to thinking about getting other publishers to do the nasty, but no one wanted to be publicly identified or quoted on the record.
Of course, this is an idea that has made the rounds repeatedly in various forms over the last few years. But now the moment just might be right - since e-readers have become almost as indispensible as Blackberries to sales reps and executives at Hachette, Random House, Simon & Schuster and other publishers, and the Kindle has become such a hot consumer commodity.
Some Quick Caveats
Before we go any further, bear in mind that no one is proposing that print galleys will immediately become archaic or that the Sony Reader is the only e-reader option. The main idea is to get e-readers into the hands of key reviewers, as an incentive to become more familiar with the advantages and (let’s be honest) the disadvantages of e-readers and e-galleys, given that they will almost certainly co-exist with print galleys for many years to come. I’m assuming here that most publishers will opt for the Sony Reader, since it doesn’t carry the charged political symbolism of the Amazon Kindle for them.
Why distributing Sony Readers to book reviewers is a good idea from the reviewer perspective:
- Instant Access: no more days spent waiting for a print galley to arrive while a deadline looms
- Portability: e-galleys are easier to work with on the go
- Reduced processing costs: e-galleys are easily opened, stored, forwarded, read and archived or deleted than print galleys, which have to be shucked of their mailers, sorted and stored, mailed to other reviewers in some cases, and eventually boxed up for recycling, donation or destruction
- Waste reduction: though designed for temporary use, print galleys are still made of trees, and shipping them around only increases their carbon footprint. Anyone who works with galleys shares in the responsibility for this.
Why it’s a good idea from the publisher perspective:
- Cost reduction: each galley costs $ 12 – $20 to distribute (e.g. $6- $10 to produce and $6- $10 to ship)
- Waste reduction: see above
- Focus on e-reading can’t hurt the e-book market
- Proof positive that publishers are technologically forward-looking and solution-oriented
How can we prevent this from becoming a good idea that a consortium of publishers will never agree on?
Let’s take a look at the issues around distributing e-readers from the publisher standpoint, in the interest of overcoming them:
- Are e-readers worth supporting? The jury of publishers is still out on this basic question, which includes whether electronic readers encourage more reading as print outlets diminish, and its corollary: do e-readers diminish the attention given to printed books?
- How to maximize cost efficiency? What’s the best way to allocate minimal dollars to a maximum number of reviewers?
- How to determine a reviewer list? Different houses favor different reviewers, after all.
- How to navigate hierarchies of reviewers? Is it better to target the assigning editors at a publication or the freelancers who write for them? Is reaching out to some reviewers over others going to create ill will?
- What about indie publishers? Will indie publishers in the consortium be able to attract enough respect and attention from the designated reviewers to make it worth the expense?
- What about booksellers? Will reaching out to reviewers create resentment in other quarters – e.g. will booksellers demand their own initiatives?
- What about platform and security issues? How to cope with the limitations of the Sony Reader or any other e-reader?
Has anyone formally asked the reviewers how they feel about all of this?
Rather than speculate about what reviewers are thinking , I’m going to stop here and open this discussion to comments from them, with the aim to get back to you, dear readers, with a synthesis of the responses within the next week or so, so we can keep this discussion going.
Questions for reviewers to consider as you respond:
- Is it an unacceptable influence on the review process if publishers underwrite the cost of such a valuable professional tool?
- Would it help if e-readers were loaned to reviewers, rather than granted outright?
And for those who can’t wait until the deliberations end
Here are a couple of contests you can enter to win a Sony Reader:
- Until May 30, 2009 – Purchase key fiction titles from White Rose Publishing and enter to win. Details: http://ow.ly/2Wnn
- Until June 9, 2009 - Purchase key romance titles from Wild Rose Press and enter to win. Details: http://ow.ly/2Wk3
One simple solution would be for various publishers to make tax-deductible donations to the National Book Critics Circle and let THEM handle the distribution of e-book readers to interested members on a 1st-come, 1st-serve basis.
The only drawback is that unless the NBCC changes its membership qualifications, that leaves out an entire school of independent book-bloggers who might be in as good or better a position to capitalize on access to e-book reader technology.
Char, this is a great post and a really important issue. I don’t want to leave all of my thoughts now, because I want to mull it over a bit.
I do want to say that my initial reaction is that I would be quite reluctant to receive a Sony eReader from a publisher, because it’s not the actual product — it’s an adjunct, a luxury, and unlike galleys or ARCs or finished books, I know that only some reviewers would receive them.
I don’t see it as so ethically different from getting the books in the mail, and it solves so many problems. I feel like a one-time purchase of an e-reader at a cost of around 300.00 would easily be made up in time by the savings to printing and mailing costs. I mean, no one rejects ARCs for ethical reasons, do they? Or do they?
I don’t think that “loaning” is at all feasible, as they are electronic instruments, and the responsibility for breakage would be too difficult to administer… that would require some type of insurance coverage…
I like the idea of e-excerpts, especially for people who need to be familiar with a large range of new books for readers advisory purposes- like librarians, for example. As a librarian myself I would welcome something like an electronic magazine containing excerpts, to read on an e-reader. As a book blogger and reviewer for a professional library journal, the galley or review copy is my “take away” for doing the review- a perk I don’t want to give up!
>>>I’m assuming here that most publishers will opt for the Sony Reader, since it doesn’t carry the charged political symbolism of the Amazon Kindle for them.
There’s also the fact the Sony Reader can do ePub, which keeps Amazon’s grab-it-all tendencies at bay.
And the more people — especially *book professionals* — who experience ePub, the better. We might get more complaints about the Adobe rendering engine and finally some improvements:
http://ebooktest.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-adobe-hindering-ebooks.html
This seems a little like putting the cart before the horse, since so few publishers are even on board with the notion of e-galleys to begin with. But if it were to happen, maybe it’s a matter of some centralized fund being created and independently administered, and interested parties (reviewers/bloggers) would make application to the organization to be considered for a device — as you would with a grant or scholarship or anything else — rather than anyone trying to identify choice reviewers and distribute that way. I guess that’s sort of a given, though, because otherwise how would anyone know who wanted (and didn’t already have) a device of their own?
The trickiest part of this idea is that it’s an ongoing process. It’s not like you could buy and distribute a certain number of devices and you’re done. There are always new reviewers, broken or outmoded devices, etc.
Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious — just sort of thinking out loud …
Seriously, any publisher who is already working on their digital program would be very smart to look into such a program. Getting an ebook reading device is not going to buy a good review — it’s going to earn goodwill and facilitate the discussion of books: Good for everyone in this community.
Why ereading device manufacturers don’t already make it standard practice to give out devices to influential members of the book community (reviewers, booksellers, agents, reps, members of active bookclubs, bloggers, etc.) is beyond me. It’s a no-brainer. What Oprah did for Kindle – that was fantastic smart PR on Kindle’s part; but there are mini-Oprahs who wield a lot of influence among voracious readers and if I ruled the ereader world (where’s my tiara?) I would SO be all over that.
For publishers – same thing goes. I’m thinking about the Coraline Boxes – http://www.animationarchive.org/2009/02/coraline-mystery-box-roundup.html — sending out something cool like an ereader would have the same effect on those bookbloggers who are gaga for ebooks.
Anyway – awesome post Charlotte!
Getting e-books/e-ARCs sent to my hypothetical e-reading device is exactly the same as getting printed ARCs and review copies sent in the mail. But the delivery service is key: with printed books, it’s a country’s postal service (or a corporation like UPS/Fedex/messenger service) that has no affiliation to a publisher beyond the service being used. But with an Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, the delivery service is entirely dependent on a particular corporation and the interests are far more tied to a publisher – especially if the publisher is the one supplying it.
Which is to say, I have no problem whatsoever getting e-ARCs from publishers, because that’s the cost/nature of doing business as a reviewer. An actual e-reader? That’s where it gets ethically dubious for me, because why should I support one particular company over another, why should I be beholden to a particular DRM/format unless I made that active choice to do so.
What would be better is if an independent body – say, the National Book Foundation, the NEA, hell, even James Patterson’s non-profit – gave out grants that allowed reviewers who applied/showed specific need could be awarded with an e-Reader of their choice, and then arrangements with publishers could be made after the fact. If there can be one laptop per child, why not one e-reader per reviewer?
I posted this without reading Karen’s comment, but clearly she and I were thinking along similar lines!
Brilliant! Sign me up. The cost benefit is a no-brainer for publishers. More books to more reviewers with no print cost? An “e-book review” generates sales and buzz for the paperback/hard cover editions also.
Interesting idea. I have had books lost in the mail on their way to me. Also, because I’m in Canada, books sometimes take weeks to get to me from the States. I have to plan my reviews for months in advance because I know it will be a while before I get the book.
Of course, when a book does arrive in the mail it’s a nice feeling.
I also wouldn’t want to feel obligated to review every book from the publisher who gave me the thing. That could be overwhelming.
Connecting thought leaders (reviewers, booksellers) with digital arcs is a great plan. Following along with others, it would be less politically fraught if publishers contributed to a digital reader fund. While the initial outlay (and perhaps Sony would be willing to work on price breaks) would seem hefty, the overall savings in printing and mailing would be felt immediately. While I love my UPS and FedEx guys, I’d be happier (and more likely to read/review) if I could grab interesting titles and load them on my reader.
Oh yes, I’d be even happier if these digital arcs were made available in a range of formats, allowing reviewers to, oh, use the devices they already own.
I’m all for e-arcs. I own a Sony Reader already, and read Kindle books on my iPhone. So, I’m all set from a hardware standpoint. But, none of the fantasy genre publishers do e-books at this point (that I am aware of). I have asked about receiving digital instead of printed, but no luck yet. Now, sometimes publishers send the actual book instead of an arc, and I would hate to miss out on those. But in the case of the more disposable arc, I wouldn’t miss the printed version at all. I never know what to do with them when I am done. Donate them? Throw them out? Books I really like and plan to read again, I will support the publishers/authors and buy a “real” edition…making the printed arc even less useful.
Although I’m a very happy Kindle owner/user/fan, I like the general idea of distributing galleys via e-reader.
When I was reviewing fantasy/SF titles for the late PAGES magazine, I’d sometimes get a dozen-plus books a week — and I could only feature four books, every two months! Most got passed along to friends (and some inevitably ended up in used bookstores, despite my requests not to do that), but some just got tossed. E-reader versions would have been a much more responsible format, at least for me.
If the device is supplied by a consortium rather than a specific publisher, it seems detached enough from specific titles to cancel out the possible conflict of interest.
The motive of the publishers is not to curry favor with reviewers but to facilitate the process of getting proofs to them as early, cheaply and easily as possible. In other words: The benefit is achieved as long as the reviewers use the device instead of demanding ARCs, regardless of what the reviewers end up writing. You have to get the books to the reviewers somehow.
In a way, the dodgiest thing about it is the endorsement of a specific platform, but it’s not as if reviewers are a large enough group that it will act to establish market dominance, the way giving computers to schools was once thought to do. Any publisher who for some reason couldn’t deliver the ms to the device would still have the option of sending printed ARCs, but I could see how this might eventually become a problem if e-galleys became the standard. I don’t know much about how the devices work, but if there were some barrier to getting the book onto it (licensing fees, a contract with the other manufacturer, whatever), some presses would be shut out.
If I were the publishers, I’d be hitting up the manufacturer, who has almost as much to gain from such a project.
The more money that one takes from the publishers (or a proxy), the less one’s opinion remains committed to truth and integrity. And let’s be clear on this: despite the long-term savings cited in this post, a $400 Sony Reader given to a “journalist” by a publisher has us firmly entering into junket territory: that disreputable place where only hacks, wastrels, and other assorted opportunists without an ethical core are known to roam.
I strongly oppose this plan because of its stark intrusion upon the trust between journalist and audience. A reviewer or a journalist is not a paid whore. She is someone who is, ideally, given a book by a third party. Ideally, the editor has considered any and all conflicts of interest in the assignment. If the journalist is a freelancer with an ethical core, she should be doing everything in her power to keep his/her plans as secret as possible before the review runs, so as to prevent the publishers from second-guessing or manipulating journalistic intentions.
One of the advantages of the present paper galley system is that, if a journalist receives about 20 or 30 books a week, there’s often no way to predict which of those 20 to 30 books will be covered.
But if you have a central place to request e-book galleys, then this anonymity and this quiet guarantee against predictable or expected coverage is sullied. I am also extremely suspicious of an organization like the NBCC attempting to accredit certain reviewers, particularly since the NBCC has an ongoing history of excluding alternative voices.
I also must express serious reservations about a government or even a foundation subsidizing a mad influx of Sony Readers. This is as patently absurd and journalistically dicey as governments bailing out newspapers. It betrays the independent nature of the Fourth Estate. And the money here isn’t going to journalists or people. It’s going to a corporation — in this case, Sony. And that’s hardly the kind of “philanthropy” I could support.
Besides, like any emerging technology, Kindles and Sony Readers will eventually become as cheap and ubiquitous as fax machines. Once the present economic hindrances (or corporate avarice, depending upon your point of view) are removed and e-ink becomes more affordable, then essentially the price point to enter this race will become more democratic. And since we are putting the cart before the horse here, it seems to me that this question might be better conceived when (a) publishers are serious about galleys and (b) Amazon and Sony are serious about not gouging their consumers.
>>>If the device is supplied by a consortium rather than a specific publisher, it seems detached enough from specific titles to cancel out the possible conflict of interest.
Why not have the publishers pay and then the consortium send them out? That way, no reader is tied to any one publisher. Nor would any publisher know who got “their” reader.
Commenting as the only South African in South Africa reviewing books (SFF), I would love something like this. Not only would I be able to read electronic copies in comfort, but since I interface with the publishers here, too, I would be able to show them how great it would be to have something like this available – it might even open our market to more writers being published here. And a loan is fine with me!
[...] Free Sony Readers for Book ReviewersOr, what if thought leaders were given ereaders to replace the endless stream of physical books? [...]
Interesting idea. We’ve been debating at LJ on how and when to review e-books. The big stumbling block of course is the e-reader. None of our reviewers want to read books on their laptops and PCs (it’s just too uncomfortable), and ebook readers like the Kindle and Sony e-reader are still too expensive for most reviewers’ budgets. Plus the assigning and reviewing logistics for LJ is tricky as most of our reviewers are working librarians scattered across the country. Are publishers going to donate e-readers?. Probably not. Are reviewing publications going to purchase the devices for their reviewers? Again probably not, especially in these recessionary times. And forget Amazon, which refuses to allow libraries to purchase Kindles for lending. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6649814.html
I’m almost a month late on this but just found the blog today.
Personally I wouldn’t want one as I don’t read e-books of any kind. I understand the cost of making galleys (which I also don’t like to read) and arc’s is a lot but I don’t throw them in the garbage when I’m done with them. I pass it on. We aren’t allowed to sell it but we can give it away. There are lots of people who wouldn’t mind reading an ARC version, even knowing it may be different. It would make more sense to have books printed more in advance of publishing date and send those out instead of ARCs. But I suppose they need that feedback to put on the actual copies.
Chris @ Book-o-rama made a good point. I’m also in Canada and many review books never get to me, get lost somewhere along the line. Also some smaller publishers can’t afford to send to me or it takes longer to get here. IT would be nice to request a copy and get it instantly or a day later. But I also like receving the book in the mail.
[...] Issues remain to be worked out. Just who will pay for the Sony readers, for example? Will reviewers compromise themselves if they accept the readers from publishers or even groups of publishers? [...]
E-GALLEYS FOR BOOK REVIEWERS
I’ve been a published and fairly extensively reviewed novelist for four decades, and I’ve been a regular book reviewer for almost three decades, and so I can see both sides of the transaction. As a novelist these days, most of the reviews I get are online, newspaper and paper magazine review space dwindling away towards the vanishing point. As a reviewer, my living space has been overrun with galleys and review copies for as long as I’ve been reviewing, in a house in Los Angeles, in apartments in New York and Paris, it doesn’t matter, I get many, many more books than I’m going to review or even read, I can’t give them away fast enough, and I can’t bring myself to throw books in the garbage when I don’t have a fireplace or burn them when I do.
From the publishers’ point of view, huge amounts of money are being wasted on this practice, and from an ecological point of view, many, many trees. I for one am ready to do my part in updating this whole business, and I believe other reviewers and also publishers would be happy to do likewise.
I think I may have the beginning of a solution via ebook readers, but its rather complicated, I haven’t figured out the details, and I think it would be best if there was interactive communication among reviewers and publishers because I don’t think I can accomplish much of anything alone. So rather than spam y’all with the detailed proposal, I’m putting it on my interactive blogsite, NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE:
http://normanspinradatlarge.blogspot.com/
Let’s see if together we can clean up living space for reviewers, save a lot of money for publishers, make it easier for more books to be reviewed online, and eliminate the waste of enormous amounts of paper.