With so many posts going up over December about how publishing was dead or dying or at least desperate, I've been giving a bit of thought to just how screwed up this industry is. I find it odd that on the one hand people are getting fired left and right but on the other hand Laura Bush commands an $8 million advance. Does anyone really seriously think that book will include a single revelation about the White House years? It's not a book with any sort of staying power (not like a nonpartisan book on the Bushes by an actual presidential historian could be) and yet the ailing industry has decided she is worth it.

This makes it very hard for me to think that publishers are serious when they say they are going to change.

I could second guess these kind of decisions all day but I think the better way to show what publishers do that could be changed (and should be changed) is just to look at the numbers. How do publishers waste money everyday? One very big way is through the ARCs they send out. ARCs cost money, shipping costs money and packaging costs money. Here's how the numbers played out for me last year:

967 Total Books Received

(That number does not include comics sent for review as I don't keep track of them)

775 Books Received which were NOT Requested

I formally requested 211 books last year. (For those of you who think that number is insane, keep in mind that at least 50 are picture books which I review for Eclectica and also that I do not receive every book I request. Several of those books also won't be available until sometime this year.) (Also note that, I include all books for Booklist in that unrequested number as I have no control of what titles come my way from the ALA. That accounts for 36 of the unrequested books and obviously each of those was reviewed or rejected only after careful reading.)

It is crazy to me how many unrequested books I receive each week. I have done my best to be removed from mailing lists but it is not easy to get some publishers to leave a reviewer alone. (Yes Harper Collins I'm looking at you. Last year's total of HC titles received: 69. Why? And even though I asked to be let out of their auto mailing list, they still keep coming.)

Everyone who is part of this system knows that reviewers can't keep up with these kind of numbers and yet they are so determined to try and get their books read that they just keep sending them. It really gets frustrating when you can't even find someone to stop sending the books - when it is clear that there is no one directing the whole process of sending books to bloggers. The difference between publishers who have a point of contact and those who do not is glaring. For example, it is easy for me to contact Roaring Brook, Counterpoint/Soft Skull, Kingfisher, Candlewick, Soho Press, Tundra, Bloomsbury, etc. It is not so easy with Henry Holt, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Scholastic. Some pubs are hit or miss - easy to contact one month, a black hole the next. I keep most of my contact to a minimum when it comes to requests - basically filling out the forms when the catalogs arrive each season. I don't think that publishers should provide constant contact but I do think they should have someone on salary who has a clue about the lit blogosphere and takes the time to make sure that only requested titles are sent out to be reviewed. If they want me to consider something I haven't requested then shoot an email description my way to see if I'm interested - it's cheap and easy to send to dozens of reviewers at once (Candlewick does this quite effectively.) Am I the only one who thinks it makes more sense to pay a person to make sure money isn't wasted on pointless shipments then to just keep shipping?

I mean really - I love Charles and Emma from Henry Holt (it will be in my Feb column) but FOUR copies of the same book sent over a three month period? I don't have anyone to contact there to ask that such multiple shipments be stopped. I just keep getting them, shipped via UPS ground, in single packages with the same pages of PR copy. I'm keeping one copy of the book (it is that wonderful) and have donated the other three. I have to wonder though what kind of computer system isn't catching these continuous mistakes, and if I'm the only one to see this book over and over and over again.

There are a lot of reasons why publishing is messed up (huge advances that don't earn out, returns policies, having to "pay to play" for table placement at the big chains, etc.) but one place they should look to save some dollars is in how they market books to reviewers. A more effective computer database, packaging multiple books for a destination together and hiring an assistant to exclusively address the lit blogosphere are all things that should be considered. I know these are not impossible because some publishers do them all as a regular part of doing business. Why all of them can not (or will not) I have no idea.

Over 700 books came to my house for no reason in 2008 and I am just one reviewer. Wouldn't it be interesting to ask lit bloggers across the internet how many unrequested books they received? I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem. (And I'm not even going to start on the environmental waste of all that packaging and gas to transport these books. I'm sure it's staggering.)