New Paris Review out. Why don't I have my copy?
Paris Review issue 175 (spring ’06) is now in your local self-respecting bookstore. My question is, where’s mine? I have a subscription—shouldn’t I get it before a bookstore does?
I’ve noticed the same thing with the New Yorker. The newsstand at work has the week’s issue usually two days before it shows up at my door. Don’t issues get mailed from the printer to distributors to be distributed to newstands in the same way that issues get mailed from the printer to subscribers? Where occurs the two-day lag?
Regarding the Paris Review, I’d like to see them update their website more quickly. If I can hold a copy in my hands (which I did at Porter Square Books earlier today), I should be able to see it promoted as the current issue on the Paris Review website. As of now, issue 175 is still described as something coming in the future.
I know that sounds like a small thing. But as I’ve learned from my textbook customers, a publisher’s professionalism—its efficiency, its care for its readers, and its authority—is reinforced by consistency in its public messages. Consistency is reassuring. It contributes to a publication’s permanence. And, ultimately, it sells. More than one customer has written me to say they are hesitant to use one of our books because information in the examination copy didn’t precisely match information in the online catalog. With the book in their hands, obviously they can see what information is correct, but invariably they tell me something like, “If this is the care you take with your website, how can I be sure my ordering information will be processed in time for the start of the semester?” That’s both irrational and understandable.
And if I have to wait past Monday for my copy of the Paris Review, I’ll be much less inclined to renew.
