Writers or anyone else interested in the workings of the publishing industry will want to read "How I Do PW Stuff" at Rose Fox Reads. In a series of five entries Rose Fox, a book review editor at Publishers Weekly, talks about every phase of the book review process: the time line; how publishers present books for review; how books are selected for review; the criteria for awarding starred reviews; and how reviews are edited.

Mary and I have been fortunate to have had all of our Byzantine mysteries reviewed by Publishers Weekly, particularly since we are with Poisoned Pen Press, an indie. In deciding whether to review a book the publisher is one of the factors Rose considers:

"...in general there are four groups of publishers in my head: those who can be relied on to provide quality books, those who have some hits and misses, those who mostly publish poor quality books, and those I don't know well enough to judge. Books from publishers in group 1 get reviewed. Books from publishers in groups 2 and 4 get further consideration. Books from publishers in group 3 get a quick going-over (because every once in a while you scrape up gold from the bottom of the barrel) and if I don't see something that really grabs me, I reject them."

Publishers who aren't discriminating enough soon develop a bad reputation. They might allow writers to get books printed more easily but are unlikely to be able to do anything much with the books. As for self published books, it is PW policy to ignore them.

It pays to have a publisher with a track record for putting out quality work and that is definitely the case with Poisoned Pen Press.