No Submissions

I've been receiving an increasing number of e-mails and pleas from people asking me to review their book / website or something that they've created. Sorry, but no. No, no, no.

There's a couple of reasons behind this:

I have a finite amount of time on my hands, which is currently going to books that I really want to read. My current reading list has 94 books. So far this year? I've read a grant total of fifty-one, mostly things that I've bought over the course of the year. I'm not wanting for reading material, and the time that I do have is typically split between reviewing books for a couple of places that have submission guidelines, such as the Functional Nerds or SF Signal, which takes up quite a bit of reading time already.

This site isn't for you: it's for me. This is my little spot on the web, and it's for my own gratification, pontification and the things that generally interest me. There's a bunch of book reviews here because I read a lot. I'm actively trying to shift my focus away from reviews and more towards commentary, which in and of itself takes a lot of work. Plus, it makes me feel used, which I'm not a big fan of.

Personally, I'm trying to avoid shilling about products that I like. I'm working to make a conscious effort to write more on critical analysis, historical research and current events. Continual reviewing is tiring, and it ultimately dilutes what I really like talking about.

I'm simply not interested in the plethora of self-published ebooks that the popularity e-book readers have given rise to. That's a broad, sweeping generalization, I realize, but I've found it's far better to put one's trust in publishers rather than someone paying a couple of bucks to go through Amazon.com.

So: e-mails that get for people asking me to review their book have a couple of options: go to any of the sites that I've reviewed for before, and take a look at their submissions guidelines, and talk to them. They've got bigger audiences anyway.