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Wow. I've not read Hillary Rodham Clinton's What Happened, nor have I any immediate plans to read it, because: for reasons of national security, I know HRC's not going to tell us much more than we already knew about what happened. Oh, there'll be a few tidbits like "...and when we heard that, Bill said..." and some previously unpublished photos, but the serious student of history can't rely on those celebrity memoirs. Celebrity memoirs are mostly written by hack writers, they're mostly trivial, they're marketed to the kind of "readers" who are most interested in the photos...and they sell like space heaters during the record freeze that arrives after the big-chain stores have set up their "think spring" displays.
I resell celebrity memoirs, and read them and review, them, for the following reason: they move. Celebrities write, or commission, them for a similar reason. Celebrity memoirs are all about the money.
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| If you are going to buy What Happened, y'might as well buy it here. |
But I was flabbergasted by the reactions displayed on The Blaze. That site has really been trying to upgrade from hosting all flamewars, all the time, to hosting snarky, funny, non-abusive comments on news items (with a point system, yet)...but it's evidently being read by a lot of people with zero experience in the writing, publishing, and bookselling fields.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/09/15/amazon-deleted-almost-all-of-the-negative-reviews-of-clintons-new-book-heres-why/
It's not often that I get to be the Voice of Experience in those fields. I can't resist.
First, about Amazon, let's review the evidence. Star ratings and the balance of writer-rated-as-favorable and writer-rated-as-unfavorable, buyer-rated-as-helpful and buyer-rated-as-unhelpful, reviews on any Amazon page will change from day to day, so here are some links you can use to check out what happens to partisan political books on Amazon. That's Amazon.com in the United States; I can't speak for Amazon.co.uk or other non-U.S. versions. This post is about what happens to books about U.S. politics, by U.S. politicians, on the U.S. version of Amazon.
Five popular books by Democrats:
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| -At the time of posting, 3.7 stars, 82 reviews, 55 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.5 stars from 287 reviews, 247 favorable reviews. |
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| At the time of posting, 3.7 stars averaged from 853 reviews, 514 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.2 stars from 1434 reviews, 1088 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.3 stars from 234 reviews, 193 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.6 stars from 2989 reviews, 2388 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.7 stars from 669 reviews, 599 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.8 stars from 1142 reviews, 1071 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.7 stars from 2272 reviews, 2148 favorable reviews. |
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| 4.6 stars from 118 reviews, 108 favorable reviews. |
So how was it possible that, before Hillary Rodham Clinton's new book became available to the public, several people had written credible supportive reviews, while unsympathetic reviews seemed to come from people who'd read only the author's name and decided to hate the book?
Here's how that has traditionally worked: A publisher, as distinct from the printers who print and bind copies of "self-published" books, handles the publicity for a new book. Publishers hire editors to identify books they ought logically be able to sell; they hire artists and designers to make books look appealing; they hire marketers to promote the book to stores; they arrange book tours in which authors read from their books, autograph copies, and do anything else authors can be persuaded to do to sell more copies of their books faster.
Publishers do not, traditionally, hire "advance readers" and reviewers, although publishers traditionally used to hire their own proofreaders. Traditional reviewers were hired, or at least paid by the job, by traditional newspapers and magazines. Publishers did, however, send as many copies of a book to as many reviewers on as many big newspapers' and magazines' staffs as possible, before the book was on sale in stores, so that when the stores set up their displays and (if possible) book parties, customers would already have read good things about the book in the magazines and newspapers.
Proofreading was traditionally done first, usually by both the writers (and as many people as they could hire, beg, or bully into helping with the chore) and the publishers' staff. Before printing the officially published version of a book, publishers traditionally tacked together "galley proofs," or mock-ups of the text, for proofreaders to check for errors. Although proofreading is a chore, writers' friends and fans were at least supposed to recognize that being asked to help with it is an honor.
Here's the most successful book the writer known as Priscilla King has proofread, so far:
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| I was Z Heckscher's assistant for about two years, during which this book grew from a pile of papers and cassette tapes in a closet to a respected reference book that went into reprints. |
Part of the publishing process, I was amused to learn, started before the book was even finished. (Publishers often agree to publish a book before it's finished, in exchange for the writer finishing it their way.) E-mails from the publishing team to the co-authors included questions like, "Which well-known writers do you know who might write favorable comments based on the chapters you have finished?"
Well, Noam Chomsky, probably America's best known linguist of all time, was an old friend of the Heckscher family. His favorable comment appears on the back cover, and yes, it was submitted to the publisher for use in the design before the book went into "galley proofs." The book was written on computers, so Chomsky probably did have the chance to watch the manuscript coming together.
But that's traditional; how else would publishers find favorable comments to put on the covers of brand-new books, hot off the press? So is the traditional next question: "Once Mr. or Ms. Bigname has agreed to be associated with this book, which emerging writers do you know who might want to review the book and second, third, and on through ninetieth if possible, Bigname's favorable opinion?"
To the publishers' great relief, the three co-authors knew several. Actually, getting favorable reviews for this particular book did not depend on finding writers who could be trusted to say nice things about whatever the co-authors had wrought. It was an excellent, comprehensive book. The co-authors had done international volunteer work, had organized nonprofit organizations, had written other books--Joe Collins had written Alternatives to the Peace Corps, a short book, had given Zahara Heckscher the idea of a comprehensive version. They had corresponded with literally hundreds of volunteers, former volunteers, and volunteer hosts. But I'm sure we've all read some books that made us suspect that the favorable reviews came from people who owed the authors a lot of money.
And these business questions were being asked and answered even before those "galley proofs" came back, to be read with a critical eye by at least half a dozen friends of each co-author...I remember that Luke Wendt took the blame for slipping in some content, at this stage, that the rest of us knew wouldn't please some of the charities and countries it discussed.
All this time, during the (actually more like five!) years writing a reference book on that scale had taken, each of the hundreds of people involved with the book had been generating publicity for it. Back then real-world bookstores, and the book tour circuit, did much more for a book than Amazon did. The important thing was for friends of the authors, contributors, and writing assistants to have lots of advance notice that a friend of theirs was writing a book, etc., etc., and (if possible) pack vans with book buyers at each of the book parties.
Nowadays, it's certainly easier on the writers, and on their young children if any, to focus a similar publicity effort on the Internet, and specifically on Amazon. Writers can contact bloggers and social media users about the progress of their forthcoming books; publishers can post official advance reviews on a book's Amazon page before the book actually goes on sale. Manuscripts are often transferred and edited online. The success of a book is often based--unfairly--on potentially misleading sales of "the e-book edition," which can kill a book with high appeal to those who aren't yet caught up in the Internet. Publishers set up Amazon pages before books are available to the public, and during this time electronic copies can be shared with proofreaders and reviewers.
For a book site this web site hasn't been able to do as much for as many new books as it's wanted to. (Yes, picture this web site waving its little hand across a desk: "Ow ow ow I want to...")
This web site did, however, do its little bit to promote this book:
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| In which an early-baby-boomer reflects on life, time, aging, and technological change. For comparison, Codrescu being a midlist celebrity--a popular NPR personality: 3.6 stars, 3 reviews, 2 favorable reviews. |
Here's how that process went:
1. I'd become a fan of the author's witty wordplay and libertarian perspective back in the 1980s; had bought some of his books, and put this one up for sale after having worn out and replaced a copy:
2. Verifying that the author was still alive, I'd found his web site and sent him a link to the review.
3. He had offered to send me a galley proof copy of Bibliodeath. I'd felt duly honored, despite both anticipating, and learning, that a foreign-born author takes a bit more careful proofreading than the homegrown variety usually do.
4. Anyway, I had read it. I had actually "read it on the computer," at home, which means not only reading but retyping every word. I had written out pages of corrections on paper, and then retyped those corrections into e-mails, having retyped about halfway through the book when I posted this review...and then I didn't get enough online time to retype the rest of them, but that's a separate wail:
Note the date of official publication: November 29, 2012. Note the date of the review: September 27, 2012. It was not a fake review. It was an honest review from a thorough and thoughtful reading of the galley proofs.
This is normal in the publishing world...so I don't think Blaze readers need to blame Amazon for discrediting the hostile reviews of a lengthy book from people who really hadn't had time to read it, and accepting the more thoughtful, generally favorable, reviews from those who had.
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