Staffed Hours:
Significance: The most direct measure of the impact of a book or chapter. Citing frequency varies by discipline.
Caveat: Finding citations can be time consuming.
Tip: Finding citations is a brute force process and is time consuming. You can search Google Scholar and search within full text Library databases. Note that by default most databases search only citations and abstracts, so look for the checkbox that says something like “Search within the text.” You would be looking for your work to be cited in the reference lists of other authors.
Don’t forget references to your work that could appear in books or dissertations. Search within Ebook Central, Google Books, and ProQuest Dissertations.
Also, set up an author page in Google Scholar. You tell Google what your publications are and it will notify you when something is cited. It is not comprehensive but is still useful. Check it out here: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en-US/scholar/citations.html
Significance: There is no standard, widely accepted way to evaluate the reputation of book publishers, but there are common perceptions as to who the first-tier publishers are.
To get started, try a Google search of ranking academic book publishers.
Try searching WorldCat for books produced by the publisher. Do many libraries purchase them?
For example, you could say: "My book is similar to these books released by the same publisher. Like those titles, I also expect more than 200 libraries to acquire my title."
When you have written an entire book, it might use useful to establish search alerts in Google and Google Scholar. Then you will be notified when a web page or journal article mentions your book. This an easy way to be alerted to book reviews.
Significance: Indirectly a measure of reputation and a direct measure of the accessibility of the book.
Caveat: This number is reliable indicator, but it takes some time for libraries to acquire books, so it will take a couple of years for library holdings of your book to peak.
Tip: Find this information at http://worldcat.org. Make sure you are counting all the editions. If you publish a book that is part of a series, check the number of libraries that own previous titles in the series. It is somewhat predictive of the number of libraries that may purchase your book.
Note: Not all Libraries are included in the free version of WorldCat. Sometimes it doesn't matter. For example if WorldCat indicates that 800 libraries own the book, but the actual number is 1,000--either way it is a lot of libraries. However, sometimes, you might want the most accurate number. Please contact Samantha Gust at gust@niagara.edu for that data.
Significance: Self-evident.
Caveat: Edited collections and textbooks are less likely to be reviewed.
Tip: It is possible to do a pretty thorough search for book reviews using Google and Library databases.