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Cox Report: February 2001 |
Jim Cox Report: February 2001
Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:
The good news is that our February issues for Internet Bookwatch and Children's Bookwatch got
posted on our website and sent off to our subscribers just fine.
For you newcomers to this discussion group, subscription to our two online book review
magazines is free. Subscribers also have permission to use any of our reviews to enhance the
informational content of their own websites, organizational newsletters, or thematically
appropriate internet discussion groups. Just give Midwest Book Review the usual credit when
doing so. To subscribe, just send me your email address and which one (or both) you want to sign
up for.
The bad news is that my wonderfully lovely, full-page-at-a-glance computer monitor died the true
death last week. It seems that there's a battery inside the computer that runs the thing, and when
that battery died it took some bits of controlling information with it.
The company that made that monitor seems to have gone out of business a couple of years ago.
Now, I have to make due with a regular 14-inch Apple monitor, and it drove me nuts having to
zip up and down the columns when laying out the February library newsletters and on-line
magazines. I'll get used to it. But I yearn for the days when I could see all three columns of a
newsletter page top to bottom at a single glance!
There's been some consternation among the small press community due to Amazon's having
automated their price updating off of an Ingram data bank. Ingram sometimes inflates prices
because of their own internal needs. When Amazon picks these up and places it on their own
book pages, the result is a $19.95 being mis-priced at $24.95, etc.
Todis, whose small Vermont press Images of The Past just got caught up in this conundrum,
wrote me the following:
> Can you steer me to somebody who can see to it that only Baker &
> Taylor's data base info automatically corrects our prices? Or do I just
> give up and cancel out with Ingram's Titles Unlimited?
For now, I'm advising folks caught up in this trap to opt out of Ingram's Titles Unlimited Program
because of the way Amazon has automated itself. All this "updating" of wrong price information
goes on without any human intervention. It is the age of the machine run amok!
> Ironic, since we've chosen deliberately not to use Ingram as a regular
> wholesaler, rather than to have them do what they will with us!
>
> Please, Dr. Cox, can you make it better?
The only thing you can do for now is to post the correct price changes with Amazon through their
typos email address:
catalog-typos@amazon.com
I wish there were a more permanent solution than the eternal vigilance of checking your own
book pages at Amazon on a regular (monthly) basis to ensure correct pricing information -- but
for right now, there is not. I know of no Amazon liaison person involved with this snafu of
theirs.
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
Peter Hulpalo inquired about another problem facing the small press community:
> How do other people on the list handle dealing with non-deductible
> complimentary copies? For example, if you give a relative a book.
Giving away your book(s) to a non-tax exempt person or organization is not a deductible expense
if it's not for promotional purposes. If it is for promotional purposes, establish the promotional
link to the "gift book" and take your deduction accordingly.
> Should authors pay retail to the publishing company? Pay Cost?
I feel that authors should pay only the cost of producing the book for as many copies as they wish
-- as long as those copies are not going to be resold by the author for their personal profit. If an
author wants copies for resale and profit making, then the publisher and the author should
negotiate a fair percentage over the cost of production.
> If the author pays
> less than fair market value to their publishing corp., I imagine, that is
> considered compensation with all the fun-fun taxes.
"Fair Market Value" is what the book is selling for at the time the author is provided with copies,
under whatever arrangements the author and publisher negotiated.
It is not necessarily the "cover price" in this age of online discounts, bulk purchase discounts,
distributor returns, etc.
> Any thoughts on the best way to deal with this?
The only way to deal with this is by contractual negotiation, written down on paper, and signed by
both parties. This is the only way to avoid misunderstandings, miscommunications, and conflicts
of interest between an author and a publisher.
> Should authors get a fixed number of copies?
Authors should get a fixed number of copies gratis. My own recommendation is five. One for the
author's own library. One for the author's community library. One for the author's family. One for
the author's own personally selected reviewer. And one for the author to take to work or play, in
order to brag about it to their friends and colleagues.
Beyond five gratis copies, the author should pay an appropriate, negotiated price.
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
Here's still another little Q&A I did that might be of interest to the small press community.
Charles Ormiston of Victoria, BC, Canada, wrote to ask:
> I was curious about your comment on how many titles you actually do review in
> relation to the cover art.
Cover art makes or breaks a book in the selection process for what gets reviewed and what does
not. A mediocre or defective cover will kill interest in my reviewers about accepting the title for
review assignment. I've seen it happen again and again and again and again. -- And again some
more. Publishers will pay meticulous attention to a manuscript as they ready it for publication,
then try to save a buck by getting a friend or family member to draw something for a cover --
almost always a formula for marketplace disaster.
If you can't get a quality painting or professional photography for your book cover, then get a
public domain painting by some old European master and use that.
It's even better to use no artwork at all than have a line drawing that looks like it was a classroom
assignment at the local high school.
> Do your reviewers pick titles off the shelf themselves, or does someone select
> titles to assign to reviewers?
Both. Most of my reviewers make their own assignments. Some want me to save out titles in their
special area(s) of interest. Some I beg and plead and cajole and con into accepting a worthwhile
small press title, because I've come to know the author and/or publisher through our little
discussion group here
A large number of our reviewers are bookaholics who simply review what they've picked up on
their weekly trips to their favorite bookstores or the "New Arrival" shelf at their local library. It
really doesn't matter to me. What I care about is that the reviewer's commentary include a
suggestion (positive or negative) regarding the book to its intended readership -- and why the
reviewer feels that particular way.
And now, here is something I want each and every one of you to consider as a possible template
for bringing your book(s) to the attention of thematically appropriate reviewers, whom you may
discover as you wander the internet or visit online bookstores. I'm going to run this post I
received in its entirety, and note how the sender incorporated an entire publicity release into a
non-spam email, grabbing my attention right from the first paragraph:
James Cox
Midwest Book Review
Dear James,
I saw your review of "Sisters of the Extreme" on Amazon, and thought you'd be interested to hear
about my own book TRIPPING: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures, just out
from Penguin last month. The book has garnered some rave reviews and already gone into a
second printing. Perhaps you'd be interested in reviewing it or already have plans to. If so, let me
and or the Viking Penguin publicist know, and we'll make sure a copy goes to the right person. I
present the press release for TRIPPING below. Cheers!
Charles Hayes
http://www.psychedelicadventures.com
Trippingtales@a...
The psychedelic experience has been both demonized and mythologized, but what is it really like
to trip?
TRIPPING
An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures Edited and with and introduction and other
texts by Charles Hayes
Website: http://www.psychedelicadventures.com
E-mail: Trippingtales@a...
REVIEWS
"Balancing seriousness with a great sense of adventure, this terrifically engaging compendium of
50 personal accounts of psychedelic experiences avoids all of the expected cultural and
psychological cliches..Hayes has not only assembled a group of highly literate testimonies, but has
placed them in a broader historical, social, and religious context. Hayes clearly intends to
demystify the use of psychedelics. " -- Publishers Weekly, September 11, 2000
"TRIPPING provides the much needed 'coming out of the closet' that the psychedelic movement
has lacked, but that the gay rights movement found so valuable. These stories will captivate,
inspire, caution and educate. This courageous book has been long-awaited, and exceeds
expectations." -- Rick Doblin, founder, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"Here's life from the trenches of consciousness, psychedelic style. Charles Hayes' TRIPPING
presents a dipperful of dreams as seen and recounted by the users of hallucinogens. It may not be
1968, but you'd never know it after reading this diary-like collection. Things are as psychedelic as
ever, and here's why..." -- Thomas Lyttle, author of Psychedelics ReImagined; editor/publisher of
Psychedelic Monographs and Essays "...a fascinating journey through the wonders and terrors of
psychedelic life." -- Elle, November 2000
"I couldn't stop dipping in and out of this juicy book, flying from New York to Detroit and back.
At times it felt like just reading it was keeping the plane up. Wow! What a contact high." --
Spalding Gray "...Hayes' purpose is to delineate the place of psychedelic substances and the urge
to ingest them in contemporary cultural history.....citing historical antecedents to back himself
up....The concluding conversation with ...Terence McKenna...is entirely fitting. For seriously
treating what is often characterized as nihilistic and destructive entertainment, [TRIPPING]
deserves its place in the literature of psychoactive substances." -- Mike Tribby, Booklist,
November 15, 2000
"TRIPPING is the best collection of psychedelic traveler's tales that I have read in a long, long
time. It should be in the knapsack of anyone contemplating passage through what Aldous Huxley
called the 'reducing valve' of normal consciousness --and out into the great beyond." -- Jay
Stevens, author of Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream
"This richly rewarding book takes the reader into uncharted domains of consciousness and
creativity. The stories told, the reflections given reveal the phenomenal landscapes of innerspace."
-- Jean Houston
"a magnificent collection of such travels by true explorers. -- Alexander Shulgin, author of
PiHKAL
DESCRIPTION
TRIPPING: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures (Penguin Compass, November
2000, $18, paperback original), the first major compilation of personal testimonies about
psychedelic experiences, contains narratives by 50 people of various nationalities and walks of life
about their most unforgettable altered states -- from the heavenly to the horrific. In gripping, often
suspenseful tales suffused with a high sense of adventure, TRIPPING liberates the psychedelic
experience from the closet of social stigma as well as from the mists of Sixties counter-cultural
idealism.
Relating the harrowing straits and exhilarating peaks of the psychedelic inner odyssey are many
accomplished writers, including former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, war
photographer Tim Page, Beat poet Anne Waldman, science fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson,
thriller writer Steven Martin Cohen, Ecstasy expert Bruce Eisner, and phenomenologist Paul
Devereux.
Most of the narratives, however, come from "ordinary" people from Sydney to Belfast to San
Francisco, for whom their anonymity brings out an intensely personal, confessional dimension.
The stories, edited mostly from taped interviews by journalist Charles Hayes, enable readers to
either "trip" vicariously or compare notes on their own experiences.
Specially featured is a lengthy conversation with the late Terence McKenna, the man who many
think was the leading spokesman for psychedelics from the late Seventies until his death in April
2000. A veteran of myriad "heroic doses," McKenna discusses some of his own trips for the first
time, as well as a range of issues, including his own provocative brand of eschatology, politics,
and anthropology, at the center of which is an abiding faith in the power of psychedelic drugs.
TRIPPING's balanced, objective perspective portrays both positive and negative impacts of
psychedelic experiences, depicting both the tolls and the rewards of such chemically-induced
excursions from reality. Types of episodes run the gamut from encounters with godhead and alien
or discarnate entities; out-of-body experiences, freak-outs, flashbacks, psychosis (momentary and
otherwise), and acts or events of apparent magic or miracle. The trips described were catalyzed
not just by classic psychedelics such as LSD, but by a wide array of psychotropics, from the
sacred plants of indigenous peoples to the latest synthetic "smart drugs."
Sample plotlines At a summer festival, a man believes he's attending the final celebration of the
gods and that his mission is to mate with his chosen one before the entire tribe moves on to a
higher sphere at the climax of the "orgasm death dance."
A young man eats some peyote buttons on a hike in the Grand Canyon, and stumbles upon a
near-death experience. The ministrations of the "shining ones," astral beings accessed during an
LSD trip, lure a college student to higher realms of consciousness. After a deja vu of
enlightenment during which he begins speaking in tongues, a tripper plummets into the flipside of
that experience in an episode of horrific eternal recurrence that revisits him in flashbacks.
A wooden carving of Christ speaks out loud to a seminary student during a church service,
reshaping her theology and the depth of her faith.
The narratives in TRIPPING are placed in larger contexts by Hayes's essays, which include a
synopsis of the history and culture of psychedelics from the ancient Greek mystery rites to today's
Ecstasy-fueled rave events; an exposition on the kinetics of tripping (what can go right and wrong
on a trip), including basic medical and psychological background; and a concise index of
psychedelic substances.
The illustrations in TRIPPING are provided by renowned visionary artist Alex Grey
(http://www.alexgrey.com) and four computer graphics masters.
Visit the TRIPPING Website, http://www.psychedelicadventures.com, to see contents and
excerpts, a list of contributors, ordering information, the latest reviews and other news, and to
read and post new stories.
The author:
Charles Hayes (b. 1955) worked for fifteen years in publishing. Since 1990 he has been a
journalist whose work has appeared in The Earth Times and E Magazine, a writer/editor for a
variety of businesses and organizations, a Website designer, and a communications manager for a
marketing firm. This is his first book.
Publicity:
To arrange an interview with the author, contact Paul Slovak at Viking Penguin: 212.366.2219 or
pslovak@p...
Order the book from your local bookstore or from:
Mind Books: http://www.promind.com or call toll free 800.829.8127
FS Book Company: call toll free 800.635.8883
Amazon.com: http://amazon.com
Borders: http://www.borders.com
Barnes & Noble: http:/bn.com
Retailers, contact Penguin Putnam: http://www.penginputnam.com or call
Reseller Sales office toll free 800.526.0275
TRIPPING: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures
ISBN 0-14-019574-2; 6 x 9, 492 pages; 12 black-and-white illustrations; index; $18 list price,
paperback original
Now it's me again. -- I know that the above was a lot of info. What I'm suggesting is that you
print it out, and compare it with what you are doing by way of publicity releases. And please note
his opening "hook" where he cites me in reference to my work at Amazon.com, and goes on to
pitch me his book for possible review.
All I can say is that anytime you see someone post a good review on a thematically similar book
to your own, this is the perfect way for you to propose that he or she consider your own title as
well.
That's all for now. See you online!
Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
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