RARA-AVIS: Gary Phillips

dcannon1@ix.netcom.com
Sun, 4 Apr 1999 13:11:17 -0500 (CDT) Re: Mari Hall's strategy of boycotting Kensington. I think it's a bit
counter productive. I have an advance copy of the Robert Skinner book in
question. I thought it was very good and even noteworthy. I certinly
question Kensington's judgement in canceling the book. They had finished
the cover art, circulated ARCs and recieved some good reviews, but had not
printed the books. But we will all be able to read it because Poisoned Pen
Press has picked up the book. It should be out soon, I've already seen
their advance copies. But boycotting Kensington will deprive us of being
able to read Gary Phillips new series, which will not be available somewhere
else. I'm not willing to forgo reading one of Gary's books. And I don't
think that it would accomplish what Mari wants to hapen, either. I think a
better strategy, is to spread the word about the books we like and to have
the Skinner selll like crazy, making the person at Kensington look like a
fool. I think this helps out Skinner much more, in the long term.

I'm afraid that if we boycott publishers who drop authors we like, that we
won't have much to read. This is a prevalent problem. It seems that most
of the publishers are cutting back. The cutbacks also don's seem to have
anything to do with quality. Berkley dropping Phillips is another
prime example of that.

Don Cannon <dcannon1@ix.netcom.com>

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