Reviewing Books: Throwing Your Money My Way

Angela Hoy's Writers Weekly ezine has an informative article this month called Throwing Your Money Away on Review Copies. While it's written primarily for budding authors who are self-promoting their work (i.e., paying out of their pockets), I felt it had some important points we, as bloggers, should be aware of because many of us are budding authors, or simply need to handle book review requests with confidence.

This key bit of advice she offers is essential for both of those perspectives:

7. The way to get book reviews is to approach a potential reviewer up front, addressing them by name, via email, and asking them point-blank if you can send them a copy of your book and a media kit to review. You should also ask them if they want to receive the print version (print book and print media kit) or the electronic version (ebook and electronic file of your media kit).

I've received a few blanket emailings requesting reviews, but most have been addressed to me by name and some are even a bit more conversational, indicating the author (or author's agent/press agent) took the time to know my blog's temperament. When a request indicates familiarity, I'm more inclined to review the book and, conversely, less inclined when it's an Hello Anonymous Blogger, I've got this tremendously exciting book..."insert pitch here." 

That pitch is unimportant to me and should not be important to any potential reviewer. I don't give much weight, either, to authors' quotes regarding other authors' books. I'm actually less inclined to review a book bolstered with authors' quotes. There's something unnatural about that. Well, we couldn't find any 'real' readers or critics, so what did your professional friends say? And one thing I'd love to see more is being offered a digital copy to review. I promise not to distribute it, I swear. It just means less piles of clutter for me to step over (I ran out of book shelves a long time ago; I had to put my DVDs somewhere you know).

Anyway, here are a few rules I strive to live by when blogging book reviews. Come to think of it, these rules can apply to any type of review you might do.

1. Review the damn book. This rule has many facets, but here's the gist: be fair and factual in your review. Leave out the superlatives unless you really mean them, and even then keep them to a handful. Believe it or not, there is nothing better than sliced bread and never will be. That is one universal constant you should never tamper with, so leave it out of your book review. By all means, compare the book to others in it's genre, but leave bread out of it.

2. Fuck, shit, and other bodily functions are just that. I wish I had a dollar for every time I read a movie or book review that was primarily an exercise in naming bodily functions. Do your readers a favor and leave the fucking expletives out of your review unless you know how to use them with stylish vivaci. This directly ties to the first rule: you need to expend more effort on writing your review with those little things called "justifications." Tell readers why you either do or don't give a shit about the book (movie, etc), but spell it out in more letters than f.u.c.k.

3. Don't sell reviewer copies on eBay. Or anywhere else for that matter. If it was sent directly to you for review, either keep it, throw it out, or give it away in a contest (unless it's a screener and not the official DVD release).

4. Don't review everything or even try to. When I first started blogging, my goal was to get as much reviewer material as possible to build my readership and blog cred. Now my goal is to avoid as much material as possible. There will come a point where you won't have the time or the inclination to review that next screener or yet another bound galley copy or whatever's been sent to you. That's when your blogging life will become less fun and more like a paying job--although you're not getting paid. That eyes bigger than your stomach idiom fits like a tee here.

5. You Are the writer/editor/press agent: act like one (or them). Here's the biggest secret to writing successfully: successfully writing. Stop and read that again. As a blogger, you're the editor for your blog, and the chief article writer, and the press agent promoting it to extend your readership and blog cred. No reader will take excessive typos, unintentionally bad grammar, and heinous disregard for coherent thought patterns as signs of professionalism. Don't even argue they will. Sure, style can dictate variations here and there, but those should be seen as intentional, not half-hearted attempts at writing. This is especially important for your reviews. Unless they're well written, you won't be seeing more established authors beating a path to your door with their books in hand.

6. Don't let the post monster devour you. Hey, it's okay to not post EVERY DAY! Here's your pardon from blogging prison. Unless you are commercially driven, have oodles of time on your hands, or work at a low-demand job that allows you to Twitter and blog without penalty, you don't need to hustle posts like an addict toking crack (not that I'd know anything about that). I think the edict of posting often and daily came from the commercial sector. But now that they've all moved over to Twitter, maybe they'll leave us alone. While it's great to have a post appear daily, don't kill yourself to get it done by skimping on it. You should only consider murder when money is involved; and no one's paying me or you to blog. At least not me. Yet.

Comments

[zoc]

Good point: If it's no longer fun, it loses the appeal pretty fast, and that can hurt the quality of the review, too.

[Paperback Horror]

I really enjoyed this article. I agree with most of what was said, but specifically: 4. Don't review everything or even try to.

Sometimes you get saddled with a ton of review copies and don't have time for yourself. It's better to take a break and read/watch something for your own enjoyment rather than lose interest in what you were doing in the first place. That, I find, is the common denominator when it comes to the death of some review blogs.

[larry underwood]

Amen on every point there, bro, especially #6.