My paraphrased interpretation of the email is that he's not going to send out books to people who don't want them, or won't review them in a timely manner. I understand that "timely manner" may be subject to debate, but ultimately the publisher is sending out ARCs for review as a means of advertisement and publicity to hopefully generate sales on the initial run of hardcover copies where they actually have a measure of profitability.
That said, I don't see any specific reason for the limitation to three titles per month: to me, that smacks of laziness in being unwilling to handle the abilities of individual reviewers to read and produce a review (in the aforementioned timely manner
).
That said, I don't see any specific reason for the limitation to three titles per month: to me, that smacks of laziness in being unwilling to handle the abilities of individual reviewers to read and produce a review (in the aforementioned timely manner
).It's a veiled warning that if reviewers, who ought to be independent of the publishers, don't play ball, then they don't get access and that struck me as being more like a contract between unequal entities than being equals. What's worse is knowing that HarperCollins (the William Morrow imprint's parent company) wouldn't dare pull that crap with the major print publications. As someone who is a freelance professional reviewer as well as one who writes reviews on a blog, the publisher's attitude is deplorable and makes it unlikely that I would ever want to review one of their books if the implied "review at such and such a time and let us track you and treat you like a beggar" attitude is what's going to greet me.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
William Morrow sends a letter to reviewers that some might find to be out-of-bounds
- 02/12/2011 02:02:52 AM
1774 Views
Sounds to me like he's tired of sending out free books to freeloaders.
- 02/12/2011 03:09:33 AM
1019 Views
There's more to it than that
- 02/12/2011 03:25:39 AM
1015 Views
Re: There's more to it than that
- 02/12/2011 05:36:06 AM
901 Views
I think they're doing the responsible thing Larry. New realities call for new practices.
- 02/12/2011 04:31:48 AM
985 Views
Re: I think they're doing the responsible thing Larry. New realities call for new practices.
- 02/12/2011 04:34:24 AM
1118 Views
I have no problems with limiting access, it's the terminology that grates
- 02/12/2011 05:03:31 AM
1048 Views
The LA Times is now blogging about this, with a link to the OF Blog
- 03/12/2011 01:48:25 AM
1031 Views