I received the Harper Collins Children's catalogs today and before I even opened them I got a bit of a bad surprise. From the accompanying letter:

"This season you will not receive a catalogue checklist. We will automatically send you titles that are appropriate for your your audience."

Excuse me? What does "appropriate for my audience mean"? I review picture books twice a year for Eclectica, so do they mean picture books? I do all ages YA stuff for Bookslut, but mostly teen titles - so do they mean books for teens? And how does Harper know what kinds of books for certain age groups I want to read and review? How could they possibly know what book any reviewer is interested in writing about? (On my table right now are four books I need to write reviews for: King Dork, Darkhenge, Ivy & Bean and The Fruit Bowl Project. Other than books for kids, there is no pattern here.)

Maybe it doesn't matter what I want to read though and they are just going to send the books they want to sell and not worry about the others.

I guess this explains why I received none of the books I requested from the Harper Spring 2006 catalogs. I finally beat the ground hard and found a great Harper publicity guy and told him I really really wanted to review Pauline Chandler's Warrior Girl for Bookslut. (From the Fall catalog - something happened to that request as well apparently.) He had his assistant put one in the mail right away and that's the only Harper title I've reviewed in ages that came from the publisher. (Loved it by the way - absolutely loved it!)

But as for the Spring titles I wanted to review: Behind the Curtain, Blood Secret, Just for you to Know, Peaches, Snow, Fire & Sword, & White Time not one has arrived. They are just now starting to come out (May 1st is the earliest pub date) but I usually have review copies a month or so before then. So I'm wondering if maybe none of those seemed like the correct titles for Bookslut or Eclectica, and that's why they haven't arrived yet.

Basically, I'm thinking I'll just try to get in touch with authors and let them know I want to review their books. And if I can't find the author and Harper chooses not to send me the book, well, I guess the 10,000 readers Eclectica gets every issue and the tens of thousands that read Bookslut will just not hear about it.

Who in the heck thought this was a good way to publicize books?