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Subject: gardenwriters-on-gardening
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- From: <tloallergyfree@earthlink.net>
- To: "gardenwriters-on-gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book
- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:31:10 -0800
Had a big wedding here this weekend, my twin daughter(s) had what turned
out to be (to their parents and most of us there) a complete & shocking (but
wonderful) surprise, a double wedding...at any rate, have gotten behind on
much of this thread,...picked it up just now with this last one, and
surprised again, wondered if I wasn't somehow being twanged a bit here. Just
had to respond:
"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?)"
Hummm, pablum? Is that similar to pabulum? Quite curious too, am I the
chicken referred to here? Anyone who knows me at all, knows perfectly well
that that's not the adjective that best describes me, and hardly something
many people would want to say to my face. If indeed I am the chicken in
question, a brief bit of background: I ran away from home at age 15 and
joined a carnival, and used to be a carnival boxer. Boxed off and on for
close to 15 years & then coached it for many years later. I also spent 7
years working in inner city Watts and for 12 years worked in the CYA, at a
maximum security prison for the most hard core kids in California.
I wrote for 18 years before I ever sold anything, wrote more than a dozen
books before I got my first sale. If I chose not to write negative book
reviews, I hardly think that qualifies as chicken.
As to : "Good reviewers scewer inconsistencies, damn with faint praise
and otherwise tell it like it is in > the literary world"
scewer? As in skewer? Well, sure, I suppose they do, on the peons out
there, but NOT for their own friends, not for those on the inside in their
tight, elite, self-supporting group(s). The very top of the heap writers ALL
heap praise on each other's work, and this works several ways of course.
When their own next book comes out, praise from the top will flow their way
automatically, and their book will sell well, as in what goes around comes
around.
Also, I've been hanging around writers of one sort or another for close to
40 years now. I had a great friend of mine, now dead, who'd written 3 hit
Broadway plays, several movies, hundreds of TV episodes and several TV
series, and he'd had plenty of praise in print over the years....but years
latter he was still pissed off at every single writer who'd ever written him
a lousy review. He'd forgotten most of the good reviews, but none of the bad
ones.
And I don't think he was the exception in how he felt, not at all.
Now, obviously, if you review movies for a living and see one and it is
absolute crap, then dump on it. If you see yourself chiefly as a reviewer of
books, as opposed to a writer of books, then by all means, let that pitbull
mean streak of yours loose whenever you feel like it. But my original point
was, that as writers, we'd be wise to always spread praise where praise was
due, and to largely ignore the rest. A book that gets no reviews won't sell.
If we have writers in this group who are so successful that they are now in
a position to go out of their way to make enemies of other writers, that
would surprise me.
What some see as "dependency" is what I see as mutual cooperation. I
write non-fiction for a number of reasons, firstmost among them, to earn
some money. Not having been born with a silver spoon...I actually need and
appreciate the money I earn from writing. When I was in the nursery business
I on occasion was polite to customers I wasn't fond of....was that chicken
of me? Did that make me some sort of a pabulum-loving sell out? I don't
think so. I believe it meant that I understood that in earning a living
there are certain rules of the trade, things you do that help you earn a
better income. My original advice was only intended for those who saw
themselves as professional writers, in particular for those who wrote books
to sell...those who write for other, perhaps much loftier reasons, please,
ignore my crassness and please, yes, do get out there and exercise your
God-given right to free speech, save those poor little lost sheep, those
wayward beginning green thumbers, save them from buying that book that
obviously isn't half as good as the one you might have written yourself, had
you not been so terribly busy writing all those hard-hitting, biting,
tell-it-like-it-is book reviews.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Green" <dgreen@kingston.net>
To: "gardenwriters-on-gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book
>
>
> > 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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gwl-g mailing list
> gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gwl-g
>
-
[gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic from reviewing books
, (continued)
-
[gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic from reviewing books,
Claude Sweet, 01/15/2005
-
RE: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic from reviewingbooks,
Sheri Ann Richerson, 01/15/2005
- Re: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic fromreviewingbooks, MARGARET LAUTERBACH, 01/15/2005
- RE: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topicfromreviewingbooks, Sheri Ann Richerson, 01/15/2005
- Re: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changingtopicfromreviewingbooks, MARGARET LAUTERBACH, 01/15/2005
- RE: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources -changingtopicfromreviewingbooks, Sheri Ann Richerson, 01/15/2005
-
RE: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic from reviewingbooks,
Sheri Ann Richerson, 01/15/2005
-
[gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic from reviewing books,
Claude Sweet, 01/15/2005
- Re: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic fromreviewingbooks, Stephen, 01/15/2005
- Re: [gwl-g] Recommending plant sources - changing topic fromreviewingbooks, Lon Rombough, 01/15/2005
-
Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book,
tloallergyfree, 01/17/2005
-
Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book,
bbmackey, 01/17/2005
-
Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book/ New Book,
Gene Bush, 01/17/2005
- Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book/ New Book, tloallergyfree, 01/17/2005
-
Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book/ New Book,
Gene Bush, 01/17/2005
-
Re: [gwl-g] discouraged by new book,
bbmackey, 01/17/2005
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