Data Points

A new Sunday fixture will be looking at the Sunday NYT Review of Books and looking at which publishers enjoyed a full review.

Why?

We used to make baseball players in college learn all the minor league affiliations, managers, position coaches (for your position), and starters in the show as a part of professional education. No one wanted to draft a kid to the Hickory Crawdads if he didn't have any idea of what organization the 'Dads were affiliated. Nitwits don't do well in any industry.

Thus, for talking agents and publishers, it is worth nothing who is getting press. Know this: the Times seldom covers small presses. Of course, advances come better from the larger houses all things being equal.

It's important to know who publishes your genre, who the leaders in that genre are, and what books are similar to yours. So, a little payback for all the help I get.

Oh, the Times calls personal essay as personal essay. I suspect this might be called creative non-fiction by some. I'm going with the Times label until they convert.

=================== 3/3

Random House. _The Brutal Years_, Emily Bazelon. p1. non-fiction. [About bullying. One for the sheep.] reviewer Andrew Solomon.

Schocken Books.  _The Wanting_ , Michael Lavigne. p.9. novel.  [ yearning for homeland and fulfillment novel in Israel / Palestine in mid 1990's]  reviewer Ethan Bronner.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux. _The Fun Parts_, Sam Lisyte. p. 11.  story collection. ["...works the line between hilarity and pathos..."] reviewer Ben Fountain.

Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt & Company. _Going to Tehran_, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, p12. non-fiction, political essay. [ reviewed as having a partisan stance ] reviewed by Laura Secor.

 Sarah Criehton Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux.  _Shouting Won't Help_, Katherine Bouton.  p.13. memior. [adult onset hearing loss and societal exposure] reviewed by Seth S. Horowitz.

Twelve. _Schroder_, Amity Gaige. p.14. novel. [ literary fiction as a jailhouse confessional referenced in the vein of _Lolita_ and _The Postman Always Rings Twice_] reviewed by Jonathan Dee.

Free Press. _Portrait Inside My Head_, Phillip Lopate. p. 15. personal essays. reviewed by Morris Dickstein.

Free Press. _To Show and To Tell_, Phillip Lopate. p. 15.  personal essays. reviewed by Morris Dickstein.

The Penguin Press. _After the Music Stopped_, Alan S. Binder. p.16. non-fiction, finance. reviewed by  Matthew Bishop.

Alfed A. Knopf. _An Enlarged Heart_, Cynthia Zarin. p.17. personal essay. reviewed by Christopher B. Beha.

Little Brown and Company. _The Pretty One_, Lucinda Rosenfeld. p.18. novel. [ comic novel about three sisters struggling with type labels they held since childhood.]  reviewed by Emily Cooke.

Random House. _The Legend of Broken_, Caleb Carr. p.18. fantasy novel [ big ass book 734 pages with wizard, and the last good man of a land called broken ]. reviewed by Mike Peed.

Bonus section - publishers listed in order of top ten in general hardback fiction bestseller list:

Knopf
Crown
Random House
Ballantine
Tor / Tom Doherty
Little, Brown & Company
Putnam
Dutton
Hogarth
Putnam.