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META
A Quick Hit
Posted 14 January, 2008 in Book Reviewing |
Gaa! Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines! After a fallow couple of months, I’ve had three big projects land on my desk in the span of a few days, all of which I was foolish enough (or desperate enough) to take on. So, I’m just a wee bit stressed at the moment.
In lieu of actual content, here’s a link (courtesy of Claire Cameron, author, blogger, and would-be diarist) to a post by the sci-fi editor at Publisher’s Weekly describing how she goes about choosing which books to review:
I review good books because our readers count on us to tell them about the good books. I review interesting books because I like drawing attention to them and they make for good reviews. (I never forget that PW lives and dies by the quality of its reviews.) I review important books–books by major authors, lead titles, books that are going to get a lot of press–because our book-buying readers care about our opinion and will want to have it to compare with other review venues, and also because it’s a service to the publishers. Maintaining good relationships with publishers is vital to our business and I wouldn’t dream of pretending otherwise. Of course it’s also vital to maintain our independence, which is why I will almost always review an important book but I will never guarantee a favorable review.
From my experience, this seems fairly standard as criteria for selecting books to review. Here at TSR the criteria are a little looser, based largely upon whether I feel I have something valuable to say (positive or negative) about a given title. It’s also been my ambition (more or less well realized, depending) to give space to books that might otherwise go wanting in the mainstream press.
I do appreciate Fox’s avowal never to guarantee favourable reviews for books; I recently declined a reviewing gig because the publication in question didn’t accept negative reviews. I have a problem with this policy, since what results ceases to be criticism (or even reviewing) and becomes advertising.