On My Radar

It Could Have Been Yours: The Enlightened Person's Guide to the Year's Most Desirable Things
by Jolyon Fenwick & Marcus Husselby

Profile Books
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Things you never knew you wanted - even if you could afford them

From Silvio Berlusconi's bed to Casanova's memoirs (the most expensive manuscript in history), via the Statue of Liberty's nose and an X-ray of Marilyn Monroe's chest, here is a remarkable record of some of the quirkiest, most unexpected and sometimes bizarre possessions that have changed hands in the last year - some costing millions, some only pennies (or even nothing at all). Ranging from rare historical artefacts (such as Marie-Antoinette's pearls) to the weirdly iconic (Elvis's medicine cabinet, anyone?), by turns ingenious, intriguing and witty, this is a brilliant and teasing insight into the culture of our time, packed with extraordinary things to amuse, inspire or amaze.

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What is "On My Radar"?

I have worked in book retail for much of my adult life.  I am pretty well-versed in the way the business works, at least at the store level.

One of the things that has always bothered me is that there are many new books that come in and get shelved with no publicity whatsoever.  A lot of books, whether they are by a popular author, or have received some pre-release critical buzz, get prime placement in stores through “co-op” deals.  These are deals where book publishers pay retail outlets to place certain books in prime locations to guarantee they will be seen.

But many books don’t have this sort of push behind them.  This is where BookSpin comes in.
I do my best to find under the radar books and publicize them on my humble little blog.  Sometimes the books that catch my eye are also “popular” releases, but my focus is normally the ones that could easily be lost in the crowd.

Look at this way:  if a new book comes in and has no co-op support, it could easily be shelved in its section with only the spine showing.  What are the odds this book will be found?  BookSpin strives to be an outlet for getting the word to readers about these under the radar books, and therefore the ironic “On My Radar” was born.

On My Radar also serves as notice to publishers that these are the type of titles I am interested in and would love to review (hint, hint).

Also, a little bit more honesty here….I am disappointed how infrequently the publisher twitter accounts utilize the “@connect” button to search the mentions of their twitter names.  A “retweet” from a publisher can result in new followers for those of us out here doing our best to get the word out for them.