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Whistlingwoman
Veteran Poster
Username: Whistlingwoman
Post Number: 68
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 02:18 am: | 
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ESSAY
In a brutal market, at least Zane is getting paid
- Donnell Alexander
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Last spring a plaintive ballad of denial called "I Don't Want to Know" fell into heavy rotation on urban radio, and became immediately recognizable as America's new national anthem, at least to me. For I was all at once going through a break-up, tripping into war obsession and falling into author hell. To concerns both personal and political I attached the Mario Winans song: Abu Ghraib? I don't wanna know. What's with these women I'm seein'? I don't wanna know. Is it really my writing the publisher doesn't like? I don't wanna know.
I don't want to know/ If you're playin' me, keep it on the low/ 'Cuz my heart can't take it anymore.
I felt like such a girlie-man.
But relationships come and go, and the war is here for the children. It's clear then that our nascent anthem most relates to the book world. Just when we need books to be vibrant and smart, publishing is making industrywide adjustments to secure corporate bottom lines, at the expense of complex material and perspectives. Just as in movies and music, blockbusters dominate, and art-film houses and indie-record stores sort out the rest.
What's the impact of this on authors of darker hues? Do you really want to know? Blacks' tortured relationship with the readership of this nation is in the midst of dynamic change. Raw, no-nonsense indie publishers have predictably prospered in light of the majors' near-total shunting off of medium-to-small books from their lists. Black literary writers -- ones with designs on audiences beyond niche -- are casting about with unprecedented desperation.
I started writing about "I Don't Want to Know" while the tune was in heavy rotation. As the year played out, my research revealed the actual story, one that ought to be told before the Michael Jackson trial blots this Black History February into oblivion.
First some background: On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, an agent set out to deliver a putative memoir of my life with and without a father -- "Ghetto Celebrity" -- to the doorsteps of publishing houses across Manhattan. A deal based on Pre-Sept. 11 Thinking was built, and that pretty much finished things for me and my non-zine nonfiction writing career. Random House -- making use of a highbrow sales strategy that went over with lit critics and bookstore heavies about as well as pushing an album by 50 Cent to Bill Cosby (Ed: Is this too edgy? I can change the reference if you like.) -- put out my book. Sales were cult-level when blockbuster was the expectation. And now I'm lucky if someone pays me to set a tape recorder in front of, say, Snoop Dogg. I happily bank the loot, 'cuz I am the rare black man who cannot get arrested. I am a contemporary writer, one very much out of favor.
Yup: Snoop Q&As, porn flick reviews and the occasional CD review, that's me. But back in the back of the day, I had an actual regular career in journalism. Beginning around the first Bush administration's end, editors at free newsweeklies, music mags and -- somewhat infamously -- a sports magazine, would quizzically, and with moderately liberal obligation, publish my reportage and cultural analysis.
Then they would almost instantly regret it.
A real-time cat, I couldn't get caught by the cultural curve. I'd write about, say, Jay-Z as he was breaking, as opposed to the time when my gig's audience was having Jay-Z marketed to it. Mine and my publishers' readerships almost never matched up. No one aside from my tiny clique of aficionados was ever happy, but I bought some time and got a little rep in the print chitlin circuit. Too, I'd get these belated little postcards that were like sonograms of my cultural influence, like that New York Times Magazine cover that referenced my 1997 Might essay. ("Aw, what a cute lil' feller," the postcards seemed to coo. "PS: We have bitten your style. Signed, The Mainstream.") And that was fun and all, but I'm like that ol' So Cal MC J-Ro: "If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then punk don't flatter me."
This went on for roughly the span of Bill Clinton's tenure in office. Then I went and wrote a book.
The rest of my career is history.
"The New York Times doesn't care about your ghetto-ass dad." A writer friend in Brooklyn told this to me.
She also said (and asked not to be on the record; the woman does have a big-house book coming out, after all) that the Times doesn't care about her own complex urban milieu and style of describing it.
She's right: Readers equipped to appreciate contemporary black literature probably aren't getting assignments from The Old Gray Lady. Whatever, though. Reviewer indifference to an over-the-top former indie doesn't totally explain the upheaval. Business is bad, and big publishing is constricted, with editors, agents and writers fleeing the game as though it were Fallujah.
At the same time, technology is stemming the sales slide in this slow medium. Cheap technology now makes self-publishing simple. Self-published fast fiction from the 'hood, along with the big-house political tract -- its kinfolk in the reading-for-reaffirmation movement -- have brought a solid cash infusion to the sluggish literary marketplace. These paperbacks made up a big chunk of the $100 million in paperback sales the book biz did last year, up 2.3 percent through November, according to the Association of American Publishers, the principal trade association for the U.S. book publishing industry. The adult mass market category was down 5.7 percent for the year. (And the year before that was a disaster.) When everything else breaks down, there remain government shenanigans and mindless ghetto mess.
Race, tech and lit might be getting down powerfully together, but they do it secretly, on a level institutions of record can't fathom. For example, BookScan, the digitized system by which the industry measures sales, poorly estimates figures for nonmainstream titles. My debut, for convenient example, was under-represented by nearly 80 percent through the end of 2004. That's because about three of four books counted by BookScan are sold at Barnes and Noble, Borders or one of the handful of other mammoth chains. "Ghetto Celebrity" bricked (Ed: "Bricked" is an expression derived from playground basketball and is designed to connote the opposite of a made shot. Is the usage here OK, or should I opt for something more familiar?) but it didn't brick nearly as badly as might superficially appear.
The sad sales of one pointedly self-involved author would make for one simple batch of hard cheese were it not that literature remains a culture's basic measure of what's going on and that publishing in general is skewed away from what's real and toward expensively propped up leisure-class legacies. (It's not for nothing that you're reading books by Paris Hilton and the same old sellers in bigger numbers than ever.)
Sour grapes, you say? Listen to me, though: Sure, fresh black writers such as Z.Z. Packer, Colson Whitehead and Zadie Smith are enthusiastically reviewed in big, mainstream lit venues. And Edward P. Jones copped the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for "The Known World,'' and Charles Johnson received the National Book Award for "Middle Passage" in 1990. I happen to think that their presence at the party is in no small part due to these writers' ability to reflect mainstream sensibility. (What do you want to know?) My point is not that these people are the literary equivalent of "ethnic" strippers who dye their hair blond and make The Man feel comfortable -- no, in fact they're some of my favorite scribes. There's no denying nostalgia inherent to clean, classic prose. But the problem is that these bylines are among the anointed few.
And they don't even really sell no books!
'Hood books, meanwhile, are not merely surviving -- they're outpacing even the mainstream in terms of sales. It's the so-called Urban Lit category, bastard child of the self-publishing boom. Freed from the judgments of publishers that once would have stymied them on the basis of sentence structure alone, these authors, of whom Zane ("The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth," "Addicted," "The Heat Seekers," to name a few) is the moment's grand dame, have formed publishing's shadow economy.
These paperback authors flourish because our epoch is not "a time when a major publishing house would publish a book they knew would not make money," says Troy Johnson, whose African American Literature Book Club (aalbc.com) effectively tracks the biggest black titles online. "Perhaps an editor felt strongly about a particular author or title. However, now that anyone can publish a book, the majors are under more pressure to publish moneymakers."
The newest street-fiction stars publish themselves -- and get paid. Cheaply produced and roundly read, Urban Lit (sometimes referred to as hip-hop fiction) is almost as well known for coming out exclusively in paperback as for its sometimes astounding lack of literacy. I'm not here to clown the one black category that's doing big business; some of my best friends are self- published. Sista Souljah has a velvet cursor and Kim Williams makes me laugh aloud. Many of the writers now starring in the urban books game would never have even suited up before technology began providing easy access. And anything that gets more urban youths reading is A-OK with this homeboy. (My 2 cents: Urban fiction is only hip-hop lit if it directs as well as reflects the culture.)
The mildly lame truth, however, is that many of today's biggest black writing stars are, in the words of novelist Jervey Tervalon, creating "low- rent porn for church-going ladies." There's a gang of pandering going on out there, writers just trying to get paid, like their counterparts in the rap hustle. And while that's commendable on some level -- the desire for meaningful compensation is, if you haven't noticed, a leitmotif of this essay -- there's a downside to the boom.
"The top five selling authors, according to my bestseller's list," says Johnson of a fiction list that's dominated by Zane, "have only been writing a few minutes."
Mythic Red-State America has a sensibility roughly akin to what I heard Red Skelton tell a roomful of Hanford, Californians back in 1990: "When I hear a comedian like Richard Pryor, I think he does his people a disservice. I don't know if I want them in my house."
Nothing gets up in your house like a book. You take it to bed, you travel with it. A reader gets bathroom intimate with her pages. Yet good books aren't comfortable. Stephen King readers aside, not so many readers are trying to be discomfited while they read. The bigger audience that corporate publishing appeals to is seeking reassurance, bromides and distraction. Not to dis, but this is why writers Michael Moore, Anne Coulter, Mitch Albom, Michael Dyson, Paris Hilton and, yes, Zane, are so disproportionately famous.
Just as it's difficult to sell earthy, honest ghetto American tales out in mainstream Book World, it's hard to move high-minded literature in the 'hood, 'cuz frankly, a lot of the literary experience of folks there is constrained by church and literacy. The folks I talk with in the book biz insist the corporations aren't going to produce and grow great books about experiences originating in African America. "It really is up to black people - - readers, authors, publishers -- to improve the numbers of quality books," Johnson says. "Perhaps, once we generate a demand for such works, the major publishers will react by trying to reach this demand."
Let's not diminish the importance of the good economic news on the black books front, though. My friend who won't make public her New York Times critique believes this is, for black literature, an era akin to when SoundScan took hold and everyone officially learned that what was on the charts and what we were really listening to were two different things.
She might be onto something. Hip-hop-inflected prose reads as "wrong" to old-guard critics the same way early Dr. Dre music sounded wrong 15 years ago. And indie paperbacks linger in the consciousness like 12-inch club hits that dominated nightlife in the late '80s.
A colleague I met up in Harlem, back when I had Pre-Sept. 11 Thinking, has shown me well. When I met Maryann Reid, she was hawking her homemade erotic fiction out on, I think, 135th Street. It was the Harlem Book Fair of 2001. My book was an as-yet-unpublished indie product, and not even a handful of the fair's attendees had heard of my then-publisher, McSweeney's. Maryann, however, was moving units. And while I'm languishing in career jail, she's on her fourth book, and her publisher, St. Martin's Press, regards her as a treasured commodity. "We can't deny that in the ' 'hood' there is great buying power," Reid told me in a recent e-mail. "Whatever artistic quality is being produced has to be marketed in a more grassroots effort."
Reid learned that sustaining street buzz is the key to sustaining a contemporary writing career. For black writers, self-publishing has become so potent that it's difficult for new writers who haven't gone that route to sell manuscripts, she says, "because you have no numbers" to prove to a publisher that there's an audience out there for you.
The flipside of that goes for the major-label player whose books haven't done huge numbers. The Random Houses and HarperCollinses of Manhattan are spectacular at dumping books into institutions. So, someone who might have bricked in initial publication can work the library angle. If they want you in the libraries, you're a lot more than a 12-inch single.
I'm proud to say that that much s -- -upon (Ed: Can we use "s -- "? I'd really like to) first book of mine is all up in the libraries of America like 99-cent stores in the 'hood. Books about how blacks survive the West, dare I say, even thrive in the West, that are literate? These be a priceless gift to future generations.
So go 'head, "urban" literati. Do your thing, critics' darlings. And peace to you, Zane. There's room for us all as we mingle at the ball. I know you know.
Donnell Alexander is a writer based in Los Angeles. His short fiction will be included in the upcoming anthology "The Cocaine Chronicles" (Akashic).
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle |
Mahoganyanais
Veteran Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 69
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 09:13 am: |
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This was great, WhistlingWoman. Thanks for posting it. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1963
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 01:06 pm: |
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As I was reading this essay, I found myself wondering if this was the style the author's book was written in. If so, he would do well to consider that his writing has a tone of exclusivity to it. Like he's not writing for his audience, but for himself;like he tweaking readers with an inside joke they are not privy to. Being an articulate high-brow author is not enough. An author has to establish some kind of a rapport with his reader. He cannot take pride in constructintg sentences that obfscate rather than clarify. Or should he be condescending. After reading a book, a person should never feel that he's been the writer's foil... Just my crazy opinion. |
Emanuel
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 85
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 09:29 am: |
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The writer wrote:
-->For black writers, self-publishing has become so potent that it's difficult for new writers who haven't gone that route to sell manuscripts, she says, "because you have no numbers" to prove to a publisher that there's an audience out there for you.<--
Truer words have never been spoken. I can't tell you the number of authors I've met who have self-published their books, sold thousands, then turned around and signed two-book deals with a big publisher like Atria or Hyperion. Many authors are following Zane's example and dropping a few thousand dollars on self-publishing instead of going the traditional route of finding an agent or sending out query letters to publishers. The days of publishing unproven authors without a celebrity name may be dwindling down. |
Jmho
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Jmho
Post Number: 107
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 12:16 pm: |
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To add to the discussion, a recent book review
(http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?=pulps&s=zimmerman021005):
PULPS
Burnt Out
by Sacha Zimmerman
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 02.10.05 Afterburn
By Zane
(Atria Books, 320 pp., $24.95)
For a while, Zane, the "erotic noir" author of best-sellers such as Sock It To Me, Heat Seekers, and Addicted, kept her identity a well-guarded secret--understandably, in my opinion. All the public was allowed to know was that she lived in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. This lent the writer an enigmatic air--and led me to speculate on which high-profile D.C. women might have penned these saucy novels, which have sold over 2.5 million copies. Could it be Donna Brazile, who has spoken highly of the mysterious Zane--perhaps a little too highly? (A few months ago, Brazile told a crowd, ''I read one [Zane book] last summer that just had my mouth watering like I've never had it before.'' My, my!) Or maybe Liddy Dole having her own Bullworth episode? (Can't you just imagine her writing, "Girlllllll, that man is so fine, I'd lick motor oil off his ass"?) Alas, the truth is more banal. Zane, a.k.a. Kristina LaFerne Roberts, is the daughter of a theologian and a schoolteacher; she is 37, the mother of three, and has begun to go on book tours and do press.
Perhaps all the positive reviews she has received have jump-started Zane's interest in publicity. Unfortunately, the endorsements are totally misplaced. Afterburn, her latest addition to the best-seller list, is simultaneously foul, saccharine, and cloying. The two main characters are the sum total of the name-brand clothing they wear, the cars they drive, and the people they sleep with. They are self-righteous, trite, nasty, and superficial. There are foil characters named Conquesto and Boomqueesha (seriously) who could actually be comedically interesting but are just left as base counterpoints to our bland heroes, Rayne and Yardley. These two desire each other but never have the nerve to get together until halfway through the movie--I mean, novel. Then they have lots of sex and get engaged. That's the whole plot--oh yeah, except that Zane randomly and unexpectedly kills off Rayne with literally eleven pages left in the novel. It would at first seem that there was no apparent reason for this, except that Zane concludes the book with this message: "To be continued in: Solitaire: Afterburn 2." What?!
This book is pure trash. Even the sex isn't hot; it's vulgar (the words "marinated" and "juice" are used way too often). And yet Zane is the toast of not just every erotic critic, but the mainstream press as well. The New York Times has written that "Zane's good-natured books are filled with smart, believable and self-deprecating young and middle-aged black characters; they are also filled with sex scenes that will smoke your fingerprints off." The Times even tries to distinguish Zane from the dreariness of white romance novelists by supporting her work as "sociologically complex" because her wealthy black characters sometimes choose to have sex with economically disadvantaged characters. Right, that's deep. Entertainment Weekly enthuses that Zane has "pulled off the nifty trick" of appearing on the Times' best-seller list "without any help from Oprah"--wow, that's patronizing--and gushes over her "grab-the-back-of-his-head-and-make-him-scream" prose. Actually, Zane's dialogue is so bad that you can practically hear the porn actors' stilted pronunciation:
"Wow, I've never met a chiropractor before. You help people improve their posture and straighten their spines."
"Among other things. Maybe I can show you my office one day. You might find it interesting."
And, after the required foreplay:
"Now I think it's time for you to operate, Doctor."
Or perhaps this is what is meant by "sociologically complex":
"Men care about two things. Money and pussy; in that order. You need to concentrate on the money and intake the dick for financial purposes only."
That little gem, folks, would be Rayne's mother bestowing a bit of matriarchal wisdom on her daughter. Mom has another great moment when she meets Yardley's schoolteacher parents for the first time: "You two come across as the swinging type. Do you ever swing? ... Swing as in fuck around, participate in orgies, get your freak on?" But let's not forget, this is still a romance:
After I was done, I told him, "For the record, I enjoy playing with all kinds of balls."
I winked at him. I was sure he got my drift.
Oh, I wouldn't be so sure; that was pretty subtle. The worst part is that what could be campy and hysterical in the right hands is utterly sincere here and, therefore, utterly nauseating.
So why on earth are the critics giving Zane such a pass? It's beyond me, though I do love the fact that the Times is writing items like "arguably not since ... Nancy Friday has American letters produced a purveyor of erotica with such mass-market appeal" about an author whose roster includes Getting Buck Wild and Chocolate Flava. Another popular way of describing Zane is to use the word "raw," which her writing certainly is, though I think the word "crap" is more accurate. In an interview with The Boston Globe, Zane cites her realism as the secret to her success: "We don't say, 'Oh let me see your privates.' To me, people don't talk that way. But that's the way traditionally it's been done." I see. And I suppose people do talk this way:
"Tomorrow's not promised; this much is true. That doesn't mean you shouldn't look to the future; our future."
"Yardley, you're the most special man I've ever met. I agree that we've been placed together, in this space, in this time, for a reason. ... Right now, let's make some cherry smash."
Aww. (By the way, I am no prude, but I found myself closing the book and doing an "Ew, ew, ew" dance to shake off the effects of learning what a "cherry smash" is.)
Everyone is so thrilled that there's a black suburban wife out there writing erotica after the kids have gone to bed that no one is even bothering to look critically at her work. Are media elites scared of having a Sister Souljah moment? Is telling the truth about this novel--that it is nothing more than amateur porn on paper--something the public isn't willing to hear? (Ironically, six years ago, Sister Souljah herself wrote an amazing novel, The Coldest Winter Ever, about a complicated and exceptionally libidinous teenager. She could teach Zane a thing or two about "erotica noir.") Which is just it: Zane's popularity rests in her total lack of taint. People want to read about sex almost as much as they want to watch it and have it, and if they can do so without appearing to be reading something smutty, all the better. I understand that maybe critics and readers were looking for an alternative to "glistening, blooming flowers" and "pulsating members," but Zane's novel is crude and unimaginative writing masquerading as urban erotica. There has to be better smut out there. If you're looking for little aphrodisiac this Valentine's Day, I'd stay far, far away from a novelist who thinks that "Afterburn" is a sexy title.
Sacha Zimmerman , former assistant managing editor at TNR, is an associate editor at Reader's Digest.
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Emanuel
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 86
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2005 - 01:22 pm: |
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Regarding Sacha Zimmerman's critique of Zane, it just goes to prove the old saying "sex sells". People read erotica and street lit books because it's exciting to read. Watered down vocabulary is often encouraged because the average reader in America reads at an eighth-grade level. So of course, everyone does not want to read (or will understand) literature. I've never read a Zane book, but I've read and reviewed a couple of books by authors from the Strebor camp. They serve as an escape.
This is a little off the subject but when Zimmerman says "People want to read about sex almost as much as they want to watch it and have it, and if they can do so without appearing to be reading something smutty, all the better" I can't help but to think about how people think it's OK to read magazines like Maxim but shun Playboy. It's the same concept. No one wants to be thought of as vulgar, but a little sex appeal is perfectly fine.
Anyway, as long as there is a demand there will be a supply. Don't hate Zane for writing smut and getting paid. Hate the society that demands smut. Or better yet, read books that aren't. There's enough room for many genres on the bookshelf.
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Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 351
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 08:25 pm: |
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Hello All,
I've read Alexander's essay and I must say that I agree with him, but I find nothing new in the essay itself. We have discussed and said as much before condernng the state of black literature. Right now, I'm waiting to see what the next phase of black literature will be, because I just stuck my finger up in the air and the wind is beginning to change directions, but to where, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. |
Jmho
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Jmho
Post Number: 108
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 07:09 pm: |
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Emanuel wrote:
Anyway, as long as there is a demand there will be a supply.
In theory, I agree. But, I am also starting to think that some times the supply can create a demand. I think this is the crux of advertising. If someone constantly tells you that need this product or service, then you may begin to think, hmm, maybe I do. The same with availablity. If that is all you see, then you're more apt to give it a try, though it's not really what you want or need.
Emanuel wrote:
Don't hate Zane for writing smut and getting paid.
Don't think anyone hates Zane for writing smut. And, as usual, it all comes down to the benjamins -- gots to get paid.
Emanuel wrote:
There's enough room for many genres on the bookshelf.
Again agree, and I don't think the reviewer suggested that this genre disappear -- just that writing, storyline, character development, etc., be good or better. But, this should be the case, regardless of the genre.
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Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 358
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 11:03 am: |
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Hello All,
I guess what gets me about this subject is that so many are defending an author's right to write poorly or bad!! Why is that? *eyebrow raised* |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1976
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 01:36 pm: |
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An author does have the right to write the best he or she can, and if this comes out as bad or poor writing, then a reader has the right to not read it. Unfortunately, there seems to be a market for books that don't tax a reader's brain. Dumb books can make a reader feel smart - because he understands them. LOL |
Emanuel
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 88
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 08:47 pm: |
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I haven't read Zane; so I can't say if she writes poorly or not. I will say that I admire her entrepeneur spirit. She self-published and turned it around to get paid. So if a guy can make millions off a pet rock, Zane can certainly get paid off of what is considered by some as poor writing. |
Carey
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 457
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 09:01 pm: |
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Hello All
Forget it Thump, they don't want to see it.......and I don't really know why. I can assume about 10-20 reasons but I couldn't prove either of them. But I'll tell you what, we have a choice. See, I look for them "blurps", they are part of the whole game. If an author can'r get someone to speak up for them I'm inclined to think that this product, in this case a good book, is not worthy of my time or money. The blurps can even push me away. You know them ambigious over the top type.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1982
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 11:19 pm: |
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Oh come on, everybody ought to know that these blurbs should be taken with a grain of salt. It's obvious that they are akin to an endorsement of a product; and the bottom line is about generating sales. So, an author, out of professional courtesy, will pick out something positive to say about the book he or she has been asked to recommend. And in the process, said author will not only feel flattered that their opinion has been solicited, but will also get their name in print on the back of a book. |
Carey
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 459
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 06:49 pm: |
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Hello
Okay............ |
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