Outside New York
New York City has Bloomingdale's, Soho, Tribeca, Columbus Avenue, and free concerts in Central Park. New York is also the headquarters of many of the largest book publishers, but it is a very expensive place to live, particularly on beginners' publishing salaries.
Are there enough publishers in other parts of the country so that you can establish a career outside of Gotham? Yes. Here are some large publishing houses and their locations:
- Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Massachusetts
- Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, Missouri
- Augsburg Fortress, Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Brassey's, McLean, Virginia
- Cliffs Notes, Lincoln, Nebraska
- Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois
- Harper San Francisco, San Francisco, California
- Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts
- Macmillan Publishing USA, Indianapolis, Indiana
- Meredith Books, Des Moines, Iowa
- C. V. Mosby, St. Louis, Missouri
- Microsoft Press, Redmond, Washington
- National Textbook Co., Lincolnwood, Illinois
- Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee
- Sunset Books, Menlo Park, California
- Western Publishing, Racine, Wisconsin
- Word, Dallas, Texas
The New York Times Book Review
You can safely say that The New York Times Book Review wins the award for circulation and clout. As a supplement to the Sunday Times, it reviews about fifty books a week, of which about thirty receive significant attention. A favorable review on page one can send a book's sales spiraling.
Although there are, perhaps, as many unfavorable reviews as there are raves, the editors are nonetheless selective in the kind of books they review. Original paperbacks, for example, receive second-hand treatment, as does good-read popular fiction.
With a Sunday readership of about two million, you can easily realize the impact of The New York Times Book Review. Become familiar with the publication even while you're still in college. Most good libraries file it, and you can receive it by subscription for $52 a year. Call (800) 631-2580 for information.
Other Review Sections and Publications
There are, of course, other important Sunday newspaper review sections. The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune publish fine Sunday book review supplements.
The American Library Association publishes the highly regarded Booklist, primarily as an authoritative review service for libraries and bookstores.
Library Journal, a bimonthly for librarians, reviews more than two hundred books per issue. Reviews are done by libraries across the country. Each issue also carries a CD-ROM review, video reviews, and audio reviews.
Publishers Weekly carries abbreviated but well-grounded reviews in each of its weekly issues. The Kirkus Review is a long-respected source of reviews for libraries and bookstores.
The New York Review of Books, as its title indicates, is a review publication sold by subscription to an audience of enlightened readers. In addition to reviews, the Review contains articles, often controversial, about authors and issues.
Many magazines carry book reviews, particularly the so-called class publications: Harper's Magazine, the New Republic, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Nation.
In addition to the eager readers of reviews among the public, the publishing industry constantly monitors reviews in publications as a guide to what it is going to publish in the future. When a publisher receives a good review for one of its own books, that book is promoted and publicized to bookstores and the public to gain maximum exposure.
Movie producers are eager readers of reviews, especially of fiction works, with the idea of turning them into films. Of course, when a publisher owns a manuscript that he or she thinks will make a good movie, it is shown to producers months before it is published and reviewed.
