- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
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- rachellieberman.wordpress.com
I'm interning at a nonprofit this summer that serves as a resource for writers and readers. They have a few publications that they send out to members, and one is an annual listing of books published by their members. They also have a newsletter that goes out every other month, and the newsletter lists books by members too, albeit without description. Also, any book can be listed in the newsletter, but as for the annual listing, books self-published or published by a vanity or POD press cannot be included, primarily because of space issues. Lots of their members publish with POD's, and if every single person who published a book was listed in this 12 page booklet, they'd run out of space.
I asked my boss if they get negative reaction from authors who want to be listed in the annual but can't because of where it was published, and she showed me a letter sent from a member which basically said it was rude of them not to include his book because POD's are just as respectable as traditional publishers. According to my boss, this is a fairly common reaction.
This seems like a delicate subject to me. On the one hand, I know that being published by a POD or self-publishing does not indicate in any way that your book is bad, but the letter we received was very indignant and insinuated (god, I hope that's the right word) that we were just assuming his book was bad. I suggested that maybe there be a separate newsletter for POD's but immediately realized that wasn't a practical solution.
In a situation like with PA and other such companies where the authors take it personally when their books aren't included alongside traditionally published books, how would you handle it? Would you at all? Obviously, we're not in the business of coddling writers or being yes men when they tell us how important their POD publishers, but we're not here to knock a POD just for being a POD, either. Only their business practices really matter.
I dunno. I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Thanks for reading, lovelies. <3
I asked my boss if they get negative reaction from authors who want to be listed in the annual but can't because of where it was published, and she showed me a letter sent from a member which basically said it was rude of them not to include his book because POD's are just as respectable as traditional publishers. According to my boss, this is a fairly common reaction.
This seems like a delicate subject to me. On the one hand, I know that being published by a POD or self-publishing does not indicate in any way that your book is bad, but the letter we received was very indignant and insinuated (god, I hope that's the right word) that we were just assuming his book was bad. I suggested that maybe there be a separate newsletter for POD's but immediately realized that wasn't a practical solution.
In a situation like with PA and other such companies where the authors take it personally when their books aren't included alongside traditionally published books, how would you handle it? Would you at all? Obviously, we're not in the business of coddling writers or being yes men when they tell us how important their POD publishers, but we're not here to knock a POD just for being a POD, either. Only their business practices really matter.
I dunno. I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Thanks for reading, lovelies. <3