Taking Issue with Newsweek’s Non-Book Club

In What's the Buzz by Erin L. Cox

By Erin L. Cox

newsweek

Hold on for a second as I get up on my soap-box…okay. I appreciate any media outlet that supports books through reviews, interviews with writers, listings of upcoming books, bestseller lists, or any other kind of support, but Newsweek’s column “We Read it (So You Don’t Have to)” and William Boot’s column on bestsellers in “The Daily Beast” are both rather anti-publishing.

People really need no help in the not-buying books department, so why become either the news equivalent of Cliffs Notes or devote any time to books that people are clearly already buying and loving. Why not focus space on those under-represented publishers or really thoughtful authors who wowed you or books you’ve just rediscovered that might have been published three or thirty years ago but are relevant today?

Tell me, as a reader and as people in publishing, what would you want the media to focus on when writing about books?

About the Author

Erin L. Cox

Erin L. Cox is the Publisher of Publishing Perspectives. She has spent more than 25 years on the business development and promotional side of the publishing industry, working in book publicity at Scribner and HarperCollins, advertising sales and marketing at The New Yorker, and consulting with publishers, literary organizations, book fairs, writers, and technology companies serving the publishing industry. Cox is also the Publisher of Words & Money, a new media site focused on centering libraries in the publishing conversation.