More than six months out of the gate, and Mechanisms has yet to garner a single review/rating on Amazon. This is not surprising, few university press titles ever do (Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media is something of an exception, with fourteen ratings; by contrast, Espen Aarseth's Cybertext, published in 1997 and indisputably a foundational text in the field, has a mere three ratings).
Question: are Amazon ratings important for an academic book? Or will the long tail take care of its own?
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Winner of the 2009 Richard J. Finneran Award from the Society for Textual Scholarship, the 2009 George A. and Jean S. DeLong Prize from the Society for the History of Authorship, and the 16th annual MLA Prize for a First Book.
A blog in support of the book from the MIT Press by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum.
Winner of the 2009 Richard J. Finneran Award from the Society for Textual Scholarship, the 2009 George A. and Jean S. DeLong Prize from the Society for the History of Authorship, and the 16th annual MLA Prize for a First Book.
"Mechanisms is at the cutting edge of second generation scholarship on digital media and electronic literature. After the first generation's inflated claims and broad generalities, Mechanisms leads the way with precise, rigorous analysis both of the nature of digital media and of important works created in networked and programmable platforms. An essential work for anyone interested in the electronic literature, digital arts, and culture in the digital age."
--N. Katherine Hayles, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
"Very few scholars have a precise understanding of the symmetries and asymmetries that define the relation of paper-based and digital technologies. Now when we need that kind of understanding, we are weathering a perfect storm raised by the long neglect of philological discipline, on one hand, and avoidance of any practical understanding of computerized resources on the other. Kirschenbaum's lucid book engages trenchantly with these important and pressing matters. It will wake its neighbors up."
--Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
"At last in Kirschenbaum's Mechanisms we have our tactical plan for thinking inside the black box of digital media, for moving past 'screen studies' to a new take on electronic media informed by deep understanding of technological practices of inscription and storage. Kirschenbaum introduces a fresh and enlightening dichotomy, that of the interplay of formal and forensic inscription. This dichotomy becomes the raw material for cutting the key to a new critical apparatus for unlocking studies of digital media."
--Henry Lowood, Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections, Germanic Collections, and Film & Media Collections, Stanford University Libraries
"Kirschenbaum's book is the most rigorous, cohesive, historically informed, materially grounded, and theoretically interesting treatment of textual artifacts in the age of digital mutation that I have yet encountered. The book introduces completely new materials and unique archival and site-specific research within an innovative methodological framework blending the new textual scholarship with the equally new discipline of digital forensics. Mechanisms is destined to be a landmark work for the field of digital textual studies in the same way that Lev Manovich's Language of New Media was for the digital arts and new media fields."
--Alan Liu, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
--N. Katherine Hayles, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
"Very few scholars have a precise understanding of the symmetries and asymmetries that define the relation of paper-based and digital technologies. Now when we need that kind of understanding, we are weathering a perfect storm raised by the long neglect of philological discipline, on one hand, and avoidance of any practical understanding of computerized resources on the other. Kirschenbaum's lucid book engages trenchantly with these important and pressing matters. It will wake its neighbors up."
--Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
"At last in Kirschenbaum's Mechanisms we have our tactical plan for thinking inside the black box of digital media, for moving past 'screen studies' to a new take on electronic media informed by deep understanding of technological practices of inscription and storage. Kirschenbaum introduces a fresh and enlightening dichotomy, that of the interplay of formal and forensic inscription. This dichotomy becomes the raw material for cutting the key to a new critical apparatus for unlocking studies of digital media."
--Henry Lowood, Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections, Germanic Collections, and Film & Media Collections, Stanford University Libraries
"Kirschenbaum's book is the most rigorous, cohesive, historically informed, materially grounded, and theoretically interesting treatment of textual artifacts in the age of digital mutation that I have yet encountered. The book introduces completely new materials and unique archival and site-specific research within an innovative methodological framework blending the new textual scholarship with the equally new discipline of digital forensics. Mechanisms is destined to be a landmark work for the field of digital textual studies in the same way that Lev Manovich's Language of New Media was for the digital arts and new media fields."
--Alan Liu, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
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4 comments:
Amazon's not the space I'd post discussion of the book. If a review there would be helpful to somebody, they've probably already purchased the book. Who's on the fence w/ "Mechanisms"? Could've sworn I rated it, though. Will take care of that.
Plus I still need to reread the book.
Added note about "academic" books: MIT designs don't make me "feel" the book as academic - "Protocol" also, until you start reading it -
So maybe I'd have higher hopes then. If it gets tagged "forensic" you might get some buyers coming through from the CSI/Cornwell/Forensic Files book buyers.
Yeah, I'd agree with Jason. I'm someone who uses Amazon a lot to check out non-academic stuff, but I'm more inclined to read blogs, RCCS, and more formal reviews for academic books.
cgb
I don't know how much effect it has. The people that are going to read your book have probably heard of it. If they haven't, well they must not be keeping up with what's being written. At any rate, I enjoyed the book a great deal so my review on Amazon should be up in <48 hours. If there's a new flood of sales, we can negotiate a percentage of your royalty checks. =)
Thanks Nathan, Jason, Collin. Wasn't phishing for reviews, honest. ;-) But I do appreciate you taking the time.
One of the things I was interested to do was use Mechanisms as an experiment to better understand what Amazon could do for me as an author. In truth, not much. I like looking in on the sales rank from time to time; that fluctuated wildly right after publication, at one pointing getting down as low as 40k or so (as I recall). I still varies from anywhere around 800k to where it happens to be just now, 167k. One or two sales is clearly enough to swing the long tail in some pretty big arcs.
I tagged the book, but who knows how useful that really is. I started a few threads, but those didn't garner any response (didn't expect them to).
So there it is. I'd say, at best, Amazon gives me marginally more insight into who my readership is than I might have had otherwise.
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