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Publication & Review Copy Timing
Question: What are your thoughts/experiences about traditional versus nontraditional (i.e.
off-season) publication dates? Can the small publisher benefit by publishing outside the normal
Spring/Fall windows?
This is a very important question, one that goes right to the heart of the problem facing the small
press or self-published author when competing for attention with the New York "corporate
conglomerates", whose submissions tend to dominate the primary (and many of the secondary)
review publications.
The Midwest Book Review receives, on average, about 1,500 titles a month submitted to us for
possible review. That sounds like a lot! But Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and The New
York Review of Books receive a monthly average of 2,500 to 3,500 titles!
So, in addition to the physical appearance of the book, the content of the book, and the quality of
the Publicity Release and/or Media Kit, the very timing of submissions has a great deal to do with
how the small presses can successfully compete with large publishers for a reviewer's
attention.
The peak months in terms of submissions tend to be October and November (aiming for the
December/Christmas season when bookstores make up to half or more of their entire annual sales
figures). Therefore, October and November are the two worst months for a small press to send
out review copies. The sheer size of the incoming book flow is an awesome thing to behold when
you are on the receiving end!
The second worth months are April and May. This is because they are the "hump months" for the
Spring Season releases for the big guys who have distinct Spring and Fall Seasons to their
marketing, complete with Spring Catalogs and Fall Catalogs, preprinted reviewer request forms,
and all the other tie-ins dedicated to capturing a reviewer's attention.
The best months for submissions (because they are the "slump months" for the major houses in
terms of their publishing schedules) are January and February for the Spring Season, and July and
August for the Fall Season.
March and June are relatively quiet, and the third best months to submit. September is fairly brisk,
and December is fairly dormant.
Now a word about "days of the week" - yes, it can actually make a difference as to what day of
the week your book arrives on the reviewer's desk!
Monday is consistently the heaviest intake day for review copies. This is because UPS does not
deliver on Saturday, and neither the UPS or the Post Office deliver on Sunday. So the books that
are in the UPS and Post Office pipelines over the weekend all show up added to the normal
Monday intake.
As the week progresses, the flow of books tends to die down a little, with Saturday (and only the
Post Office delivering) tending to have the least number of books arriving. But countering that
low Saturday figure is that while the book bags will be opened, it's fairly frequent that the books
themselves will simply be stacked and added to the Monday piles, before starting the process of
examination to determine their status with respect to the review selection routine.
So, the two best days to have your book arrive for inspection are Thursday and Friday. Those are
the days when the competition of other books arriving simultaneously with yours is the least - say,
30 other titles instead of the 80+ that a Monday would see, and the 50 a day that Tuesday or
Wednesday averages.
With respect to Post Office deliveries, I have no idea how you can fine-tune a delivery date to the
preferred day of the week. It is possible with UPS because they have a book tracing component
and can give a fairly accurate estimate for time of delivery, in terms of how many days between
receiving the book and its final destination delivery.
The patterns as I have described them are consistent and arise out of my years of experience with
The Midwest Book Review. Past conversations with my peers in other review publications and
organizations echo these experiences and observations - even when they are at PW or LJ and
dealing with twice to three times as much book traffic.
Jim Cox
The Midwest Book Review
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James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
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