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gwl-g - Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book

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Subject: gardenwriters-on-gardening

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  • From: Doug Green <dgreen@kingston.net>
  • To: gardenwriters-on-gardening <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book
  • Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:33:16 -0500



If a magazine were to publish a negative review, do you think the book publisher would take a chance on sending that publication another book to review? Of course not. Marketing is hard enough - I suspect that few book publishers would take that chance.

For another viewpoint, list members might consider reading the NYT book reviews or any other serious book-review literature. Good reviewers scewer inconsistencies, damn with faint praise and otherwise tell it like it is in the literary world. Garden writing reviewers tiptoe where literary reviewers stomp. Garden writers blush where literary reviewers snarl. Garden writers timidly point out a problem while literary reviewers wave flags and blare trumpets.

It wasn't always like this. Read the historical gardening journals and watch the fights develop between writers, gardeners etc. It was an exciting free-for-all in both literary criticism of garden writing as well as about the actual content of the book itself.

Why is it like this now? As an editor once remarked to me, as a reviewer, I had my right to free speech and so did the advertiser. I could exercise mine by writing an honest review and the advertiser could exercise theirs by taking their advertising elsewhere. Safest course for the publisher was not to print the review and maintain the advertising. I accept this as a business decision.

What it does though in my not always humble opinion is produce literary pablum. You can live on pablum but you surely wouldn't consider it a gastronomic treat. I read book reviews for the meat they provide not the stool producing bulk.


At first, I thought he was taking the chicken way out but after some thought, I realized that he was correct. We are all dependent on each other - book publishers, magazine publishers, writers, photographers.

So dependency is the reason to allow pablum to survive? (insert devil's advocate grin here)


And really, there is little need to publish a negative review. Most of our readers are smart enough to recognize a good book from a poor one.

And here Nan and I really part viewpoints. Beginning gardeners (those who buy the majority of gardening books) haven't a clue what constitutes good information or crud. I once read a piece by a well-respected garden writer who spent the article decrying the lack of good advice while simultaneously making factual error after error. If you were a fan of this writers, you would accept these errors as truth. I have seen more than one magazine article with factual errors that were never corrected in subsequent editions even though these errors were pointed out to the editors.

imho, Sales figures are more the function of advertising and marketing efforts rather than the result of reader's inherent "smartness" and the ability to "recognize a good book from a poor one". Now, perhaps expert gardeners would recognize a good book from a bad one, a good monograph from a bad one, but even there I've seen disagreements. Read any botany list and watch the discussions about taxonomic issues if you doubt that folks will agree what constitutes good or bad gardening information. LOL!

So, end of rant. I've just returned from a week's holidays in Cuba where the sun was warm, the underwater gardens lush and the guayabo drinks cold.

Tomorrow is my first day of relaunching my full time writing career and my immediate objective is to ensure I don't write pablum. LOL!!!

Doug



Douglas Green
Award winning writer telling your story
www.simplegiftsfarm.com/clips/clipmaster.html








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