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Reviewing
Reviewing and reviewers. I should say that I’m not concerned here either with the perpetuation of the commercial status quo by those who report on what books are most reviewed in a given week or with the arguments and lamentations that have arisen in recent Letters to the Editor sections about the golden age of ethical and informed book reviewing.
Instead, I want to know what the rules are now for publishers in a review-starved new world. Specifically, what does a publisher do when the first reviewer out of the chute somehow completely misses the river?
It happens now and again (and always has) that a reviewer so clearly misreads a novel that a fellow wants to leap up and scream into some microphone somewhere in defense of a phenomenal debut work of fiction or a heartfelt non-celebrity memoir. But publishing editors have access only to printing presses (how archaic) — and now to blogs — and not to microphones (Ms. Regan notwithstanding).
More important, I suppose, is that publishers are not supposed to complain about such things. That’s the way it’s always been because, first, such complaint might tick off the editors at the offending review organ and, second, the complaint would only bring additional attention to the damnable review.
So, shhh.
Oh, and, of course, there’s the danger of a fellow’s laying on the table either editorial self-defense or sour grapes.
But I figure the rules are changing as rapidly for publishers as for booksellers. So what to do in this new-media world in handling the age-old injustice of The Misreading Reviewer?
Should we quietly await (as we’ve always done) the surely inevitable intelligent evaluation that a beautiful or powerful or courageous book will earn? Should we quietly wait, solemn in the recognition that each season there are fewer and fewer review inches, fewer chances for any book to be addressed on the same grounds it was written on?
The bigger question is, Can any one review still widely affect the future of a book?
If not, then never mind.
But if so, then are there different rules in this aspect of an industry whose main stream is so clearly (if slowly) shifting to the new media?
Fred Ramey
Comment
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I was struck by this problem myself when my novel came out. It was ignored by most of the review organs and so I signed up with PW to be a fiction reviewer, with the hopes that from there I could develop my reviewing skills and somehow make a difference by reviewing neglected books. Especially small press books, which are not always of interest to the established reveiw organs. It is a problem, I agree with you. How do we develop alternate review sites? I know there are some great blog reviewers out there (though I couldn’t get many of them interested in my book, even when I offered them review copies). I suppose many of the blog reviewers want to establish their own legitimacy and so don’t want to risk reading books that might be really bad, and not on most people’s radar. But this seems to me one of the huge issues in publishing today—how do we develop a viable alternative to the big press system, one that allows small books of odd subject matter (mine was about a woman who had visions and went to a visionary commune) to be brought to the attention of a potentially-interested reading public?
— annie gilson · 02/26/07 11:35 AM · #