Sunday 10 August 2008

What I'll Read, And What I Won't

Please don't submit your work if you're under the age of legal consent (18 in the UK). There are legal implications in publishing books when you're too young to sign contracts which I don't want to get entangled by. Apart from that, your work is unlikely to be good enough to impress me, and I don't want to break any young hearts.

Don't submit pornography: I can't be bothered with it, and don't want it in my house. Erotica, however, is welcome.

Books which contain gratuitous violence or overdone sex are unlikely to do well.

Don't submit any overtly religious writing, as I don't believe in gods of any kind and my remarks are likely to offend you.

Don't ask me to consider e-books, no matter how good they are. I like reading real, physical books and don't have an e-reader, and I'm not going to sit at my computer for an extra hour just to read your books.

Apart from that I'll read pretty much anything. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir; books for adults, books for children, and all ages in between; hardback, softback, illustrated or not. Send it to me, what ever you've got.

7 comments:

Floyd M. Orr said...

Wow! I'm impressed with your candor. If you haven't visited PODBRAM yet, you really must do so. Let me know if you would like to be added to the POD Review Ring. If so, please read through the other listings and send me the info you would like to have posted for your site. Thank you.

The Self-Publishing Review said...

Floyd, I'm having computer issues at present so can't have a look at the review ring right now. I'll have a look when I can, and will get back to you, but thanks for the invitation. It's most appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Well, that leaves me out. My book's both erotic and religious--par for my course! ;)

Good luck!

The Self-Publishing Review said...

Mojo, erotica's OK, it's just pornography I'm not after. As far as religion goes, do bear in mind that I'm not a believer, and so might not be particularly considerate of your views. Not intentionally: I just know that as a result of my lack of belief I'm likely to miss some of your references, and might well make crass comments without realising what I'm doing. If you're happy to submit despite that, and are prepared to give me room for my lack of awareness of your genre, and you feel strong enough to have me say what I really think about your work, then do please submit when I'm ready. I'd be happy to take a look.

Jane Smith said...

If you want to submit a book to the Self-Publishing Review, you can now email me at "hprw at tesco dot net", putting "The Self-Publishing Review" in the subject field, and I'll send you an address to submit to.

Unknown said...

Hi,

Can I ask that you make a slight amendment to your rules.

I have just finished reading a year's worth of blogs. I found it entertaining but find myself unsatisfied because of the large number of comments regarding punctuation and formatting.

I am thinking of a system similar to the UK driving license test. I'm not arguing against counting these but can I suggest that you switch to considering punctuation a minor offence (which a proof reader can fix) with grammar problems, weak dialogue, confused ideas, and so on (which require significant effort from the author) counted as majors?

Sam

Jane Smith said...

Sam, thanks for the suggestion. It is actually very similar to the way I work right now.

When I find a misplaced comma, for example, I make a note of it but I only add it to my list of errors if I go on to find a few more, as a repeated error implies a significant and ongoing mistake rather than a single, simple typo, which we all make. And it's that ongoing, entrenched problem that will make mainstream publishers think twice before taking on a book: they don't want to work with writers who don't have a good instinct for the written word.

I overlook more problems than I list; and I agree, it's wearying seeing the same faults over and over again. But I'm not responsible for that: the writers are. If they had fixed the easy stuff, I wouldn't find those mistakes in their books.