You really must read…

Welcome to my new blog! I plan to re-view, or look at again, books that are past their initial release season, that have become what is known in the publishing trade as “Backlist Titles.” With so many books being released every new publishing season, too many get shorted on promotion simply because publishers don’t have enough money or time to promote every book equally. Unfortunately, as a result, many good books often fall by the wayside for lack of immediate attention when they’re first released. It’s not that they’re bad books by any means, just overlooked. So my plan with this blog is to unearth those gems that are still in print, but did not receive the attention they deserved at the time they were published.

But I’m going to need a little help with this, and here is where the readers of this blog come in…

Anyone may contribute a re-view of a book they would like to share with the world. We all have favourites like this - the books that didn’t get much media attention at the time, didn’t make it to the bestseller lists, maybe didn’t even get reordered by booksellers once the one or two copies initially ordered had sold out. Maybe you know of a locally published book that you’d like to tell us about, or a great author from your home town who hasn’t received national, let alone international, recognition for their work. This is your chance to sing their praises. There’s no monetary compensation for your contributions, I’m afraid. Just a great big Thankyou and the feel-good knowledge that you’ve helped to promote a book that you like. Think of this as a www.coffeeklatch in which we all talk about, and recommend, the great books we’ve just read.

I also won’t be advertising for any particular publishers at this point in time. And I won’t be asking for review copies. Anyone sending in a re-view for this site will have read their own copy of the book. But publishers may send me their website addresses (to the address below) if they would like their backlist titles to be considered for future inclusion on this site.

I’d like to stick with traditionally published paper books for now. No e-books, or self-published. We may expand later if this blog proves to be popular.

So what I would like everyone to do is send me an email with their re-view in the body of the message (no attachments please). Make sure to include the full title and author’s name as well as the publisher and release date of the copy you have read. I will do the necessary research on each book, checking to make sure that the book is still in print and available to be ordered. After editing your copy, I will then post the re-views to this site. Anyone may leave comments at the end of each post.

Please also help by spreading the word about this site and ask your friends, or even your book club members, to join in and re-view their own favourites.

I do plan eventually to feature particular authors and their bodies of work, as well as offer an indepth look at backlist titles for specific publishers (usually of small presses to begin with), so if you have any suggestions of particular authors or companies that would make good subjects, please send me your suggestions. I’m Canadian and worked in the publishing/bookselling business for many years. In the beginning I will be focusing on Canadian publishers and authors in my own re-views, but anyone reading this blog is welcome to re-view books published in any country - as long as there is an English edition available somewhere.

Send all correspondence to bookre.views(at)yahoo.ca.

With your help, I hope to make an interesting site that readers around the world may turn to for suggestions and information on books they might like to read next. And I also hope to give some extra promotion to deserving books and authors - to breathe new life into them by giving them a little more attention, and find new readers for them.

Enjoy!