The quality of the longlist (which comprises every eligible submitted book) varied wildly.
As the New York Times has recounted, and Salon has discussed, one Todd Rutherford set up a now-defunct operation called GettingBookReviews.com that would, for a fee, ensure the publication of dozens of five-star consumer responses to a submitted book.
None of his publishers have been surprised when his submitted book diverges from his original idea, as is all too common these days.
Publishers must submit books for consideration as a standard submission.
There will be one big difference in that publishers do not submit books for the Folio prize, with the bulk of the list decided much like the Oscars are decided – by an academy of writers and publishers and editors.
In the five years in which slightly under 40% of the submitted books have been written by women, the percentage of women on the longlist has been slightly over 40%.
Any debut first published in this calendar year in the UK is eligible, and we're particularly keen to hear about all those new and small publishers who might not have the means, or presumption, to submit books through the official channels.
Amazon says that authors in "Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, India and more" will now be able to submit books for voting and potential publication — although Kindle Scout will remain limited to English-language titles.
When Gorman balked, they replied that even Kirkus Reviews offers "indie" reviews for $425 which I suspect (and correct me if I'm wrong) is a way to make money off of the crackpots who submit books with titles like "Tuesdays With Jesus" and "How Gold Can Help You Be A Rich Person".
Apple's iBooks author promised to be an app that would make it easy for authors to self-publish and submit books directly to the iTunes store on their Macs, but efforts to reach out to self-published authors on iBooks haven't caught on quite as quickly, at least not in terms of mind share with indie authors.
