Regarding the relation between the NYTBR and the selling of books, asked after recently by M. Cahiers, there are even more vectors of mediation than 'Dette suggests. It's not just that some relatively significant potential audience is likely to know the name of some poets basically if-and-only-if they've encountered said name in the Paper of Record; it's that, as I recall from my years at the Independent Bookstore of Record (back before it moved uptown), lots of stores actually base their weekly ordering on what's reviewed in the Sunday Boook Review. We got our copies on Tuesday (and yes, we sold them separately) and then called in our orders to the distributors, weighting them only slightly based on how positive or negative was the piece.
So a review actually gets books onto shelves. The publisher then counts these as sales, until they're returned, should that happen. Which, with poetry, it sometimes will—but not always. And in a genre where the difference between disappointing and decent sales for a substantial release is maybe 600 copies, a Times review can matter to a disturbing degree.
For those who worry about such things.
Posted by jane at November 22, 2005 08:13 PM | TrackBack