Here, abstractly long in preparation and only briefly given here in a “Take 1,” is news on the book manuscripts of mine that people may have seen listed in search results or in the Google Books Preview Program. [An important update is in the May 31, 2012, entry.]
(I put “published” in the subhead in scare quotes because for most of the below titles, the way they have been, or are planned to be, published is not the idea of many consumers—i.e., printed up professionally, effectively distributed nationwide, etc.)
+ A Transient: A novel. It was initially published in very small-scale fashion in 1999-2000. It was listed in Books in Print for some time afterward, maybe up till today or very recently (I am unclear on whether BowkerLink superseded, or supplements, the old Books in Print, but certainly “metadata”—bibliographic data—for this title turned up in BowkerLink, as I found in late 2009 or in 2010, without my help). When in October 2011 I saw a Google Books page turn up giving this book’s info, I suspected there were parties having caused this to happen—aside from Google Books, whom I don’t really blame—not all of whom were friendly to my cause. Be that as it may, I changed this book’s status to out of print in October 2011. It will remain that way indefinitely. I had actually considered, back in 2010 or earlier, eventually “republishing” it with extras (outtakes, side-issue essays, photos—these more or less on a par with the “extras” you get in a DVD of an old, esteemed movie)—but this can wait.
Strangely, the Google Books page has listed a nonfiction book A Primer of Kleinian Therapy, by therapist Irving Solomon, Ph.D., and published by Jason Aronson Publishers—I had done copy editing on this book in 1994—as if it was somehow “related” to A Transient. They are not related at all except having been worked on in one way or another by me. More may be said on this when I’m ready.
+ Professional Help: A satire. I had this in Google Books’ Preview Program for a little over a month, from late November 2011 to early January 2012, to see how that program worked. This book I definitely always considered an “also-ran” among my books. I do not foresee it being available in any “published” form or otherwise for sale in the foreseeable future. (I may say more about this in the future.)
+ The Folder Hunt: Annotated Edition. This is the most peculiar entry in this list, and it poses a number of problems that would be very interesting for me to describe—not least of which falls under the category of the inadvertent “mischief” caused broadly, affecting many, by Google Books’ efforts to be a worldwide bibliographic database (I am generally not a Google hater and have tried to be pragmatic with them in my little business all along). The fact that this book has never been published; that the only info on it available online has been from me; and even its rather nerdy title all suggest to me that if anyone is genuinely interested in obtaining this book as a consumer product, I would be surprised, though grateful if it were the case. First: it was never published in 2010, despite Google Books’ info on it (I have endeavored to change this info, and Google Books has been cordial enough about it). Second: it was originally scheduled by me (in January 2011) to be published (very small-scale) this month, January 2012. Third: I changed this date (in BowkerLink) to be June 2012, to buy me some time while I deal with this book’s (and other, more pressing) issues. Fourth: more ethical considerations lead me to be very hesitant to publish this book at all, at least through Internet-mediated marketing, given what I could infer or hypothesize about the fact of its Google Books “publicity” starting in October 2011 (again, not only instigated by Google Books). Definitely more to say on this in the future.
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