Go Amazon yourself

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

This applies mainly to nonfiction writers: Amazon's new indexing feature can be a tremendous boon to the self-esteem of authors. Before 2004 I only knew of 18 books in which any of my own (three scholarly works published in the 90s) were cited. But once Amazon made it possible to search the contents of (some) books in its inventory, I learned of twice as many additional citations, bringing the total to 55. (Some are just bibliography listings and others just notes, nice enough but not nearly as thrilling as being named in the text and singled out for praise which has also happened occasionally.) The last three I've learned of have been incredibly diverse: a U. of California Press book about Lemuria, an Indiana U. Press title about Sri Lanka, and a U. of Chicago Press book about race melodrama as a literary genre. It has been amazing and delightful to find out how many different disciplines and area studies are represented in the contents of those 55 books.

As the royalties shrink towards single digits, the citations seem to be expanding rapidly-- 8 in 2004 alone. So I'd encourage any authors of scholarly nonfiction with the incentive of ever-increasing citations over the years. The financial incentives are almost nonexistent except in the rarest cases, but learning of another new book that cites your own every month or two is tremendously rewarding.

Check it out for yourself if you have ever published a scholarly article or book!

CYD