Small Press Center News Excerpt

Book Reviewing and Small Presses
by Gregg Wilhelm, Woodholme House Publishers,
Baltimore MD

Recently, Washington Post Book World's Forum posted a letter from Dan Poynter who wrote in response to being told that Book World does not review self-published books. Book World editors appended a note to Mr. Poynter's original letter in which they described their policy, implying that they also give small press books short shrift. Below is an edited version of a letter by Gregg Wilhelm of Woodholme House Publishers, which he submitted to Book World's Forum and to the SPC.

Dan Poynter's comments about many book review media shunning small, independent press books (Forum, August 8), and specifically self-published books, need to be shouted from the rooftops. The Book World editors' response, however, gave me pause.

It has been my experience -- and it has been reported in various media -- that the "professional system" on which Book World relies is both out-dated and, in some cases, nonexistent. This system includes literary agents, acquiring editors, copy editors, and publishers who somehow bestow particular books with a certain "presumption of merit."

As for the system being archaic, at Woodholme House we welcome un-agented material. I, along with the two co-publishers, determine which projects fit our program and are financially viable. A small team with people wearing many hats makes the discernment process no less rigorous than at larger publishers with actual editorial, production, and marketing departments. Nevertheless, while book-industry media have favorably reviewed a number of our books, leading book-review media have generally ignored them.

I also contend that the quality-control function of this professional system no longer exists to the degree it once did. The responsibility of developing and polishing manuscripts has fallen from house editor to literary to freelance manuscript doctors whom some authors need to hire. Literary agents are generally reluctant to take on authors who lack a certain cachet. Many acquiring editors are pressured by quotas to sign-up books that will pass muster with the sales department -- without regard to the work's innate quality or prospect of in-house development. The sea of drivel that ebbs (sales) and flows (returns) from mainstream publishers that supposedly embrace this professional system has been well documented.

Woodholme House's books, and many books by self-publishers, do not always explore "quirky subjects" or hold "avant-garde viewpoints," unless you consider sensitive photo-documentaries of kids beating cancer, riveting Holocaust memoirs endorsed by Sir Martin Gilbert, short fiction praised by Madison Smartt Bell and Stuart Dybek, or essays by a philosopher who has been likened to Loren Eisley and Annie Dillard at their best, to be "quirky."

Do I send the Washington Post or New York Times or Los Angeles Times a review copy of every book we publish? Of course not; most of our titles are inappropriate and some are indeed quirky. But when we do send a book, I expect it to receive the same treatment as a book from a mainstream publisher. I do not expect it to be thrown into the slush pile simply because the name before "House" on the label is "Woodholme" rather than "Random." I would hope that other books are not discarded because the name of the publisher is unfamiliar.

Amazing growth within the publishing industry warrants change in reviewers' policies now. I cannot imagine the mounds of books piled around Book World's office, or the dread that rises whenever the UPS truck pulls up, but it is your job and I'd think, as book lovers, finding the hidden gems would be part of the fun. To dismiss books from independent or self-publishers seems to me to be grossly cavalier and ultimately a disservice to your readers. Independent publishers have the guts to publish important stories that often larger publishers refuse solely because the author isn't a former something-or-other with a built-in audience or a regular on the late-night talk show circuit. The least book review media could do is give books by independent publishers a fair -- if albeit brief -- shake.

The gap that once divided books from small presses and books from mainstream publishers simply no longer exists across the board. Woodholme House and 53,000 other small and self-publishers attest to that fact.