Another issue that has become more visible lately is the question of where bloggers get their books from. Taking this one step further, if we receive ARCs or review copies from publishers are we morally required to tell our readers and also are we more likely to positively review the book because we received it for free?
I have written before that I think it is bizarre to accuse anyone of positively reviewing a bad book because they hope to get more free bad books to review. (Why would you want more bad books - free or not?) But it also bothers me that the insinuation here is that bloggers are more likely to succumb to the "swag" mentality. Readers do not know us that well - do not know our professional or financial situations, so why do you think that free books would have such a huge impact on our lives? Why, in other words, would we be the most likely ones to lie in a review?
But regardless of thoughts on those arguments, I am perfectly happy to explain where the builk of the books I review come from. Keep in mind that most of the books I review are for Bookslut or Eclectica - and not my personal site. The higher exposure (especially through my Bookslut column) accounts for why I receive a lot of books from publishers. Last year around 500 books were sent to me, most of them not requested. Here's how I came to have them.
Booklist: The books I receive for review at Booklist come via the decision of my editor, Donna Seaman. I do not choose these books at all - although Donna and I have decided over time which types of books I'm more likely to receive. I review books on aviators and polar exploration (big surprise) and also lost of nature/environmental titles. I also recently reviewed a book on the history of women in auto racing. Usually it is just what Donna thinks fits best with me.
Bookslut/Eclectica: I generally request about 150 books a year for these two sites. I have 12 YA columns at Bookslut and about 8 themed articles covering multiple titles at Eclectica (also YA). I also review about 30 picture books in two semi-annual picture book reviews over there. The rest are for standalone reviews at either site - and are usually adult books.
I request review copies from the catalogs mostly. Roughly 75% of the books I request this way are sent to me. If I request a book then I do feel that I must make a good faith attempt at reviewing it - meaning I intend to read it and review it but if I deem it unreadable then I will not review it. This happened to less than 10 books I requested last year, so that system has worked pretty well for me.
I also request books that I see mentioned in Booklist - usually this is how I hear about polar exploration books. I also will request books I see written about favorably at other sites - this is how I heard about Mohr from Unbridled Books and From Baghdad With Love from Lyons Press, both of which have since published other books I have reviewed as well.
The rest of the books I receive are mostly sent unrequested from publishers hoping I will review the books. These books have a very short shelf life around here. I decide from the enclosed PR copy on the book (which gives a brief plot summary usually), the dust jacket description and the first few pages if I'm going to consider it. Few make the cut, but in my May column I include Unshapely Things, a very cool fantasy/mystery. That one showed up unrequested and I enjoyed it a lot, so this method certainly can turn out positively.
I also receive a few books due to contact from authors. Usually I receive an email here at the site from the author explaining what their book is about and asking me if I would be interested in a review copy. If it's not my thing, then I let them know we wouldn't be a good fit. Otherwise, I suggest they send a copy - and make it clear that I give no promises. Kristopher Reisz sent me Tripping to Somewhere this way several months ago and his book is in my May column as well. So again, this method can work out but it's far less likely to then via a publisher.
For Voices of NOLA I pretty much always request the books as they must be specific to the city. Recently I did hear from a publisher (Garrett County Press) who had a NOLA book he wanted me to consider - I'm finishing it right now and it will be the next book reviewed at the site. Voices is such a specialized site that I count on contacts like this to help me uncover relatively uknown NOLA-related books and authors. So far we have written about books from big and small publishers over there and I think the mix is really quite impressive. Most recently I reviewed An Unnatural History of Cypress Parish, from Unbridled Books and prior to that reviewed an entire series of books from Soft Skull, a title on NOLA zines from Last Gasp and a great look at past and current musicians from Marion Boyars. All of them are excellent small indy press titles and would have been less known if I didn't work my butt off at finding such titles and developing relationships with indy presses.
Which brings me to my last point on obtaining books to review. In several different posts over the last two weeks I have read that people think bloggers are likely to fall victim to reviewing only what the publishers want reviewed. Books appear, we all read them, we all like them, we all write about them. In other words very little thought and creativity seems to go into how we decide what books to review. I don't know how anyone could come to this conclusion after surfing the lit blogosphere, but maybe that proves my point - they don't read a lot of lit sites and thus they think they know what books folks are talking about, but really, they don't.
Not that such a thing could happen among print reviewers, of course. (Don't make me name the authors - you know which big important reviewed-to-death titles I'm referring to.)
From the very beginning I have actively sought out smaller independent publishers to include in my columns and articles. Part of this is due to my own interests - I was a fan of Oni Press and Subterranean Press long before I began reviewing. Both of them now send me review copies and Kage Baker's wonderful Rude Mechanicals which I reviewed in the current issue of Bookslut was obtained this way. I do not review every title I receive from these publishers however, just as I don't receive every title from Random House or Penguin. As I said before some books just are not a good fit for me, but a careful review of recent titles I've reviewed will show a wide array of publishers and titles.
For example:
In Bookslut, I have two Kage Baker novels reviewed, one from Sub Press and one from Tor. I also reviewed two books on the Iraq War, one from Soft Skull and one from Interlink. And there is a WW2 memoir from Unbridled Books that I combined with a discussion of Jo Walton's alt history novel, Farthing from Tor. (A book I received as a Christmas gift.)
In my column are titles from First Second, Penguin, Knopf, Tricycle Press, Candlewick, Front Street and Tundra Books. Pretty cool spread and I didn't even plan it that way - it's just how the books fell into the theme I was building for April.
If you look at Eclectica, I have a feature on mysteries that includes titles from Soho, Serpent's Tail, Akashic Books and Bitter Lemon. My piece on YA adventures has titles from Greenwillow, Candlwick, Chronicle, Putnam and Houghton Mifflin. My Picture Book review has eighteen titles from a ton of publishers, but includes Charlesbridge, Children's Book Press, Front Street, Chronicle and Tricycle Press.
Lots of books reviewed in all that - from lots of publishers. I don't think anyone could say that I stick close to what is big and popular or write about the same books as others. (To further illustrate my point, I have a review of the GT Labs graphic novel Wire Mothers heading in to Jessa shortly for the May issue.) But rather than just making a point about myself, I think print reveiwers and readers need to consider that I am not an isolated case - all kinds of bloggers are making all kinds of forays into the reading and writing and reviewing fields and they are taking their particular interests with them. I seek out books on the subjects and characters that interest me, and I'm not the only one doing this. Because I review so many different types of books from different sources, many more books have been sent my way from other small presses. Yes, every publisher and author hopes I will favorably review their title but I could not possibly do that - even if I wanted to. No one can read that many books and write about them; it's just not possible.
So I send out requests to varied destinations, I read books I receive from all over the place and I write about the ones I think other readers need to know about. And as to why I am not compelled to favorably review a book I do not think is well written, well that's easy:
There are ten other books stacked up beneath it that I know are probably better. So I reach for the next one, which is what any good reader would do.
Finally, please don't send me any free mugs in the hopes it will make a difference when it comes to a review - as I have said before, I'm just fine on mugs as well.
One of the things to come out of Roger Sutton's recent post on bloggers who review books over at Read Roger was a lot of other posts that all discussed the same subject. In the comments at Roger's site and others I saw some of the same things asked about and mentioned over and over. People are curious about why bloggers review, where they get their books from, how they resist being favorably prejudiced about authors they know via blogging, why author interviews are conducted (apparently in any format) and just what is the difference between professional and amatuer reviewers. I was going to ignore it all but then I got to thinking that if people cared enough to ask this stuff all over the place then clearly there was a lot of confusion or concern out there. These are not questions I have ever thought to ask really, but I'm game to consider them now. First up is one that has in fact bothered me every time it appears (whether in relation to kid lit or adult lit):
Just who is a professional book reviewer?
Before you jump to the obvious, understand that I'm not seeking to compare the editor of the London Review of Books to a kid with a My Space page. I get that there is a difference in the extreme. But I'm wondering about the enormous grey area in the middle where most reviewing takes place. Roger mentions the term professional in his blog more than once in relation to The Horn Book and I've seen it in many others as well - almost always by print reviewers. But no one ever says what it takes to be a professional book reviewer. It's not obvious - like getting a medical degree and completing residency or passing a state bar exam. There's no single clear cut path. So here are my questions on this subject and maybe you can all help me figure this out. (I also asked Roger about it at his blog and hope he gives some insight as well.)
Professional reviewers are not required to have a specific academic degree - or any specific graduate degree. Many bloggers have degrees in literature, creative writing, library sciences, etc. It seems that on a purely academic basis, there can be no distinction between the print professionals and the bloggers.
There is no required residency or internship to be a professional reviewer. Everyone seems to get there (wherever "there" really is) through a network of jobs reviewing from the ground up. I was hired by Booklist after being noticed at Bookslut and Booklist is one of the gold standard periodicals when it comes to reviewing. Many reviewers start out as freelancers, which means they don't make a living at reviewing - they do it on the side. Are they considered professional the day their reviews appear but amateur the next day when they blog about a book? How many times a week do you need to freelance to be professional and on what level do you need to be read? Local paper - regional - national? And do your years of reviewing online count?
If you look at the idea of making a living from reviewing in order to be professional that brings the pool down to a very small group. (And shrinking all the time in the wake of what's happening in Atlanta.) And it also doesn't seem correct to me. As I said above, newspapers run reviews from freelancers all the time (and always have) and they are not making a living at reviewing but clearly their editors consider them professional enough to review for them. (Gwenda, Ed and Jenny D. to name just a few bloggers who do this.) At what point do you make enough money to be deemed a professional? (If in fact that's the criteria.) And what about Kirkus and Booklist that have a lot of presige in the publishing world but pay a very tiny amount to their reviewers . Are you still an amateur unless you attain editorial status at such publications?
You can also consider the literary journals. They have a lot of very well thought out, complex and critical book reviews but they also sell to very small numbers. Are you a professional reviewer if you are printed in the Missouri Review because it is affiliated with a college, even though it is not that widely read? And yet are you an amateur if you review for Strange Horizons that is very popular but online and not academically associated? And when you throw in some place like Strange Horizons then you get into a genre discussion. Is a fulltime reviewer with little science fiction background who writes for the NYTBR more professional and thus more qualified on the subject than Niall Harrison at Strange Horizons?
Do you see how complicated this all gets?
And then there is the whole issue of writers who freelance as reviewers. Just yesterday I linked to a Jenny Diski review in the Guardian. Now Jenny is a writer, first and foremost - but she does contribute reviews fairly often. Does this make her a professional reviewer? And how many reviews must a writer contribute to become a professional reviewer/writer? (And when you consider Jenny also blogs, well, the mind does start to spin.)
So here I sit as Reviews Editor for an online literary magazine, a columnist, reviewer and features writer for an insanely popular online literary site, a published author (essayist) (and yes, that's published in print if you're wondering), a reviewer for Booklist (where I have had more than one starred review, although I credit the amazing books for that and not my reviews) and a blogger who reviews at her personal site.
You tell me - what am I? (And the follow-up to that question would be - 'What are you?')
Gail Gauthier had an interesting post on friday about why blog reviewing matters. Her point was that bloggers are not stuck reviewing only brand new titles and can review books months after publication. Here's a bit:
At the beginning of December, Anthony McGowan said that his book Hellbent "has sunk without a trace in the US." It had been published here only three months earlier. A book's season can be cruelly short.
Here's where blog reviews come in--They can extend a book's season.
Blog reviews aren't going to make any difference as far as finding a book review space in the big journals or getting them an award is concerned. They can, though, find them readers, which is at least as important if not more so. Blog reviews put titles and names out there. Blog reviews create name recognition. Blog reviews bring books to the attention of readers who had never heard of them, but they also remind readers of books they'd been meaning to read but had forgotten about.
I've written about this sort of thing here before (scroll down to the part about author John Green) and really I have little hope of getting books reviewed at Bookslut or Eclectica anywhere near the pub date. In both places I write themed group reviews so while there might be one book that is close to pub date, most of the others are not. I was actually just starting to worry about this yet again when I read Gail's piece and it took some of the worry off. As it happens, I'm working on my April column right now (February is off to Jessa, March is nonfiction and I have only one more book to add there and April is fantasy), and I was planning to add a review of the fantasy anthology Salon Fantastique. This was released for adults last fall, but I think it's great for teens as well. Then I got Neil Gaiman's new YA anthology, M is for Magic and I was thinking that would work well in the fantasy column also. (This is one I requested.) Then out of the blue Penguin sent me Fair Folk - I haven't read any of it yet, but when you look at the lineup (Patrician McKillip, Jane Yolen, Midori Snyder, Megan Lindstrom, Tanith Lee, Kim Newman and Craig Gardner Shaw), well, you know the odds are good that it's going to rock.
But I don't have room for three anthologies in this column - not if I want to give them more than a paragraph each for a review. (The column includes Unshapely Things, (which was another surprise arrival - more on that later), Spirits That Walk in Shadow (out since last October!), Tantalize and Tripping to Somewhere (out since last September!) already, with two more books requested.) And then I read over at Small Beer that Interfictions is off to the printer and ARCs will be going out soon. Gavin wanted to send me an ARC of this one, so I know it will be on the way and that is now FOUR fantasy anthologies.
No way these titles are going to fit in the April column.
So, since May is all about "boys coming of age" and June is my "super duper girls hit the beach with these books" column, that means the anthologies are pushed back to July. (Pushing romance to August, family drama to September and on and on.) Lest you think I'm forgetting Eclectica, well the April issue is a picture book round-up (I do this twice a year) and Adventure books (like The New Policeman and The Flight of the Silver Turtle) and July is "ripping good mysteries" and a whole piece on stories that take place in mysterious houses (would you believe I have four books for this piece already and one more on the way?). I might push the mysterious houses piece back to October though - just cause it seems to belong in October - and the put sports books in July (one football, one hockey, one baseball so far...more to come.)
Anyway, yeah - themes don't lend themselves to catching books the minute they come out. There isn't much I can do about it - this is the system both editors have asked that I work in and I like it anyway, but I do worry when I see everyone else mentioning a certain book that I know I'm not going to get around to for months. (An Abundance of Katherines was an example of this.) The thing is though that I am an avid reader, always have been, and I rarely read a book the minute it comes out. There are some authors I really want to get in hardcover because I know I will reread them for years (Neil Gaiman is an example of this), but most of the time I'm happy to wait until birthday or Christmas and I am always looking for books that are a few years old.
I just finished reading Gerald Durrell's A Zoo in My Luggage and that came out originally in 1960 so clearly new and shiny is not what I'm most attracted to.
So I'm taking Gail's post to heart and I'm not going to worry about this anymore. And as a plus, if I add an anthology column to the summer than I could put in Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys which features essays from Cecil Castellucci, Bennett Madison and David Levithan. It's not a YA book (nor is it fantasy), but I'm hoping it will work for teen audiences because heaven knows they could use it. And I think it would be fine with the fantasy anthologies - think of how many different authors young readers could be exposed to in this kind of column! (I get way too excited about this kind of planning.)
It's all about trying to give readers great book ideas they might not have heard of elsewhere. And I'm thinking now, for sure, that just because the book is a few months old doesn't matter so much anymore....at least not on the internet where book reviews can live forever.
