Dan Poynter, the foremost expert on self-publishing, commented on my blog a few days ago. I'm both flattered and grateful -- thank you, Dan, for taking the time to comment!

Here's my answer.

The first part of your comment was:
>>>I invite you to turn and look at a shelf full of books. How many spines can you read at a distance?
>>>Note that the books are standing on end.
>>>Doesn't a book have an advantage if the title is in block letters and vertical?

You're right, Dan, that I can't read many of them at a distance. I have two problems with titles arranged vertically. The first is really that I find them difficult to read. Even with your book, Dan, when I look at the title on the spine, if I didn't already know what it said, it would take me 5+ seconds to figure out what it says. Don't know why, maybe that's just me, maybe it's a form of learning disabillity or something.

But I doubt it, because titles arranged the other way are the convention, not only for books but for videotapes and DVDs. There's got to be a reason for that, and I think it's because most people are like me and find it difficult to read text going from up to down.

The second problem I have with a title arranged vertically is that because I find it hard to read, I also find it annoying. So when I'm in the bookstore browsing down a shelf of books and I run across one with a vertical title, I find it so annoying that I skip past it. 

So as an independent publisher, the question becomes, which is more important to me, to have the title readable from a distance, or to avoid annoying a browser, and to make it easily readable in line with all the other titles that the potential buyer is browsing?   For me the answer is the latter. I think there's usually a risk associated with flouting convention. Sometimes it's worth the risk, and sometimes it isn't. In this case, in my judgment, it's not worth the risk.

The second part of your comment was,

>>>Many reviewers sell review copies to the Strand Bookstore in New York or on Amazon. Some of the
>>>books circulate back into the book trade and get returned to publishers for a refund.
>>>What can we do to defend ourselves from this practice?

One way to defend ourselves is to place some kind of code in the book to indicate where we sent it so that we can remove that reviewer from our list, after notifying them that we're doing so and why. Perhaps we assign a code to each reviewer on our book reviewer mailing list, place that code on the mailing label so we can easily keep track of it, and write that code inside the back cover in an unobtrusive place.

I used to work in the mainstream publishing industry, and what I found was that most of my coworkers were people who love books. They just love books, even the books they haven't read yet -- they love to handle them, smell them, take them home and put them on their bookshelves, partly to own them, maybe partly also to impress their friends and family members with how well-read they are. 

It's my belief that the whole publishing industry is based on a love of books. I love books myself, mostly because I've had such wonderful experiences in my life reading them, and many of those experiences were during childhood when I was forming ideas about things. I still love the look of a bookcase full of books -- if I walk by a room that has a bookcase, it's almost impossible for me to not go over and take a look at the books there. (Looking at the books a person owns also tells me a lot about them.)

When we stamp the outer pages of books with ink that says "Review Copy," I think it does two things. First, it ruins the book for the book reviewer who would like to take it home and put it on their shelf. It "defaces" it, to use the term used by Midwest Book Review Editor Jim Cox -- it destroys the book's value for the person who would love to own it.  Imagine giving somebody a gift for Christmas that had the word "GIFT" stamped on it.

Second, I think it says to a book reviewer, "I suspect you're going to do something inappropriate with this book." People don't like being suspected, and in the long run I believe it will do you harm to suspect them. By suspecting them, we punish the people we *most* want to honor and reward and appreciate -- the people who review our books, usually for very little money although it takes them a long time to read what we've written.

Another way to handle the issue is to let it go. I haven't personally dealt with the refunds issue, and perhaps that disagreeable experience awaits me and may change my mind.

Actually, couldn't you state that you have a policy of not issuing refunds for review copies, and the way to spot review copies is -- a small X written inside the back cover? Maybe I'm reversing myself here in suggesting that we mark a book at all, but I'm not sure a small X written inside the back cover qualifies as defacing. Maybe I should ask Jim Cox.

For Jim Cox's much more eloquent statement against defacing review copies, see
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/deface.htm

And incidentally, his recommendation is as follows,
"If you must mark your book, do so on the inside cover or the bottom of the title page. A stamp saying "Review Copy Only - Not For Sale" should suffice."