Juno Books

Along with doing several other publishing-related jobs in addition to being a more than full time book editor, I review books. In fact, I’m even a member of the National Book Critics Circle (unless my dues have expired). For the last year I haven’t done a lot of reviewing, but I am starting to do so again and editing reviews as well.

More about that another day. I’m just supplying this info as background. The point of this post concerns e-galleys.

First, let me set out my prejudices:

1. I sit here in front of a screen all day. Reading onscreen is “work”.
2. When reading a book for review, I like to relax — as a regular reader would. For me, “relax” isn’t “sitting here where I work all the time”.
3. When reading for review, I often mark up a galley/ARC/book.
4. I also read review books when I go places and have to wait for any reason.
5. No, sillykins, I own no portable e-reading machine of any sort, nor do I imagine I will unless they start handing them out for free. I don’t even have a laptop anymore because the youngest went to college and he needed it.

In general, reviewers are not fond of e-galleys

All this being said there are also very good reasons to welcome an e-version of a book:

• A book that might be published in England and/or is otherwise a high-priced (usually limited edition) hardcover.
• Advance copies of books, especially mass market paperbacks, are quickly becoming a thing of the past — and for good reason. Other than the cost and waste involved, most mmp reviewers seem to want the “real book” and disregard an ARC anyway. But there are still times you need an advance, pre-publication reading (deadlines, advance quotes, interviews, just deciding if you are even interested in consdering a particular book for review, etc.)
• You get it right away.

So, I am not unacquainted with various versions on e-galleys. I’ve always been notified of availability of such by email.

But HarperCollins/Avon did introduce me to something new this week. I got a card– a Symtio card — in the mail along with promotional material for two books: Embrace the Night Eternal and Abandon the Night by Joss Ware. (Okay, there’s at least a name drop for your efforts, folks!) On the back of the card was a scratch strip that revealed a PIN. You go to the proper URL, supply the pin and get your free ebooks. I am warned they are DRM protected and will expire a week before on sale dates. That’s somewhat bothersome, but I also am fairly sure the nice publicity person would, if I requested, be happy to send me a pulp version when it is published.

Today, it is still a novelty. Enough to gain my attention because it is new. The colorful, informative (although, please, could you make the typeface on the the back a teensy bit bigger?) cards might be used promotinally in other ways, too. But they are probably a mite on the pricey side to be handed out like, say, bookmarks.

I was supposed to beta-test NetGalleyfrom both the publisher’s and reviewer’s points of view early on in its development — so early it was time-consuming, bothersome, and I dropped out pretty quickly. (Although I hope I gave their tech people some decent feedback while I was involved.) They are up and running now and I’ve had a couple of e-mail invitations to download e-galleys there. Haven’t yet.

I understand, from news items, that Simon & Schuster–Pocket is an imprint thereof, Juno is an imprint of Pocket–is in beta a similar system. It appears it will be quite awhile before it is the usual way of doing things though.

The card, front and back:

(And, uh, yeah, that one blurb really does say “Zombies May Rule, But Love Always Triumphs.” I bet you were wondering how zombies were getting worked into this )

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