All of these interviews have been fantastic, and today, Three Percent was fortunate enough to be So if you’re interested in finding out more about the site you’re currently reading, head over to Critical Mass . . .

Actually you should head over there for all of the great Critical Mass content, such as the the (which happens to include a plug for from Wayne Koestenbaum), and

As he points out at the start, alt-weeklies are facing a lot of the same circulation and money issues that daily papers are. And the alt-weeklies — which I still think of as a steady outlet for reviews of non-mainstream books — are cutting back in books coverage as well. But the door still remains “slightly ajar” for a book critic to get into these papers, and his article has a number of recommendations to critics on how to enter said door.

The recommendation that I find most interesting is this one:

3. Zig When Everybody Else Is Zagging. Given the thinning of book-review sections at daily newspapers, alt-weeklies have a great opportunity to pick up the slack. (Alas and thank goodness, my local daily, the Washington Post, remains a bright light when it comes to book coverage.) Look at your local daily and see what they’re not doing.

Let me guess: Not a lot of coverage of books from local presses, especially ones from university presses that could easily have wider appeal. Probably few independent presses. Not much on books in translation. Or on graphic novels. And not a lot of fun: No imaginative roundups, no visual thinking, no attempts at literary treatments of the current news, no attempts at humor that go beyond being sagely droll.

And yet freelancers occasionally seem baffled, even offended, that I have no interest in running a review of a much publicized book. A straightforward 1,000-word review of Netherland, even a nicely turned one, is never going to appear in City Paper. I assume my readers don’t need another one of those.

Right on. This kind of diversity is exactly what we need more of. From a customer’s point of view, it seems like the book industry (which is actually bigger than ever) is collapsing in on itself, with only a dozen books at any point in time being read, discussed on NPR, reviewed widely, and displayed at bookstores. It’s my belief that we naturally want to resist this sort of narrowing, but that book trade economics make this difficult. Alt-weeklies are historically one of the places that help expand awareness about books and culture, and hopefully, even in this age of consolidation and shady buy-outs, they’ll continue to wave this flag.

1. Publish only the books you really love.

2. Publish only the books you love to read yourself.

3. Never publish more books than you can read.

4. Never publish a book that bores you, even if you think that you can sell it.

5. Only publish books that make you wonder.

6. Do not publish only fiction

7. Never think that books make people better.

8. Always be happy that you do not have to publish the books of your competitors.

9. Always be aware that too much reading is bad for your eyes and bad for your back.

10. Publishers who are only interested in books, are dangerous.

I second all of these. And totally agree with this comment from Dick Margulis: “Publishers who are only interested in books are much less dangerous than publishers who are only interested in satisfying their stockholders.”