Book Review Sites: A Compare-and-Contrast Observation

First, let me apologize for not posting at this time last week. I was pretty  much incapacitated with a calcium deposit in my shoulder. Typing was so painful I avoided as much of it as I could. But I am healing now so let’s get on with it.

Two weeks ago, I did a bit of a rant about vanity book review websites. This week, as promised, I want to do a compare-and-contrast analysis to show you exactly what authors and readers will want to look for when seeking opinions about books. We’ll look at two online sites—Bookslut and BookPleasures.

Bookslut is one of the oldest online book review sites and a hugely popular one. It’s beautifully designed with a clean format that uses three columns to separate their current issue from the reviews and columns. Heading up the page is a well-designed logo and well-chosen typeface, and under that are small tabs that offer quick access to various parts of the website.

The date and number of the current issue is clearly noted, and its individual pieces are previewed in a manner designed for easy reading. Clicking on a review takes you to the page for that particular book, which is also well designed. The column that holds the review offers a lovely image of the book, the typeface is clean and clear. Information about the book—the title, author, publisher, ISBN, and number of pages—are neatly formatted at the end of the column. Any imaged advertising is set off to the left of the page (and in the header); Google ads, text only, are at the bottom of the page. The only thing that can be annoying is the flashing of one of those imaged ads, though that is rare. Columns are pretty much laid out like the reviews. Any books discussed in them have their images embedded to the left top, where the column text begins. Ads are to the right.

Their contact page is minimal but offers all the information needed on submitting books for review and for writers who wish to apply. Their description of Bookslut is succinct with a touch of humor: Bookslut is a monthly web magazine and daily blog dedicated to those who love to read. We provide a constant supply of news, reviews, commentary, insight, and more than occasional opinions.

It is a site designed for readers seeking good information on books, and entertaining and thought-provoking essays, interviews, profiles, and commentary on books and reading. The writers are professionals, and their writing is top notch. The reviews are erudite, informative, and provide excellent information about the book sometimes within the context of the author’s previous work or background. In other words, readers get the information they need to make an informed decision.

For those seeking to advertise, they have a separate page that explains in just enough detail the reasons to advertise. They also provide links to their specifications and prices—no hidden fees or sneaky hints, just clear, simple information.

To say it briefly: Bookslut is a consummately professional book review website that knows its focus (readers) and strives to provide a high-quality, pleasurable reading experience.

BookPleasures, I am sorry to say, is Bookslut’s opposite in more ways than one. Its logo is a free clip art image, and the typeface for the name appears to have come straight off a 1960s typewriter. Above the logo is a page-wide list of internal links in a tightly squeezed box that spans the page, making it an effort to determine where to go.

Google ads litter the top of the page. The background is a dull gray, and the layout has three columns. To the right is the “BookPleasures’ Section,” which offers links to various parts of the site but not one of which, until you get down to the fourteenth link, is geared to readers. Clicking on any of these makes it obvious that the intent of the site is to sell services to the authors who come here. You need a quick review? That will be $119, please. How about an e-interview? A mere $50. Editing services? We can do that by referring you to someone who will charge you $35 or $60 per hour. (I don’t know this, and it’s not illegal, but I would be willing to bet that some of that money also makes it way back to the founder of BookPleasures.)

The center section is also poorly formatted. There’s a picture of the reviewer that is clearer than that of the book cover, mostly because the cover is encased in a border that also holds several links to Amazon. You can barely read the title or author’s name because the font color of the permalink is a hard-to-read bright blue and begins with the author’s name, not the book title, and includes the “[reviewer name] of BookPleasures” in one long sentence. The typos don’t help much, either.

In other words, it’s all about the writers. And BookPleasures.

Readers are shortchanged. Indeed, they appear not to be thought of at all. Reading the reviews is an exercise in pain. Grammatical errors and clichés graffitize the reviews. There is very little description that is useful to someone looking for a new book. What does it behoove any reader to learn that a reviewer “enjoyed reading this book”? Or that “pages have a sensuous, shiny feel that makes one’s fingers linger.” I love the sensuality of books, but those kinds of statements cannot possibly help a reader make a judgment about whether a new book is worth buying. They do, however, have the advantage of making an author feel good. Ideally, an author who paid for the review.

In short, BookPleasures is an author-focused site that looks to squeeze money out of its readers client-authors. The fact that the founder repeatedly stresses that these money-making offerings are optional is telling. Methinks he doth protest too much.

Quality book review sites like Bookslut know that their audience is composed of readers who demand quality in the writing found on the sites and in the books they review. If you are an author, look for sites and blogs that appeal to readers. Look at their design, their features, their writing, their writers. Would you want to hang out there if you were not an author? Does the site repeatedly solicit books or simply provide guidelines for submission? Are there any charges for anything, optional or not?  

Does it appeal to you as a reader? Is it fun, enjoyable, interesting? If you are a reader, do the book reviews and essays appeal to you regardless of whether or not you agree with them? Does it seem sufficiently trustworthy that you would you buy a book based on their recommendation? Is the site visually appealing? Does it annoy you with its ads, or are they tastefully designed and placed? Is the writing worth reading on its own even if you are not interested in the book being reviewed?

Remember, there’s a big difference between Parmigiano-Reggiano and Cheez Whiz. Learn the difference, and enjoy the fruits (cheese?) of your knowledge.

Fries with That Review?

As the publishing industry changes, and as technology allows for anyone to publish inexpensively, the number of books issued each year continues to grow. The self-published and vanity-published ones are mostly  destined to sell fewer than 100 copies each because no one knows about them, but even authors from the major houses feel the pressure to get to get and keep their sales up or risk not having future books accepted. That means publicity.

Publicity can encompass all kinds of things: book signings; book tours (virtual or, less commonly, real); postings on their own blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, or on forums; links, articles in magazines, newspapers, and online publications; and book reviews. 

Places that publish book reviews also span a wide variety of types and styles. There are trade publications such as Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus. These get the attention of those who can make a book such as librarians and booksellers. For general readership, the big venues are the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and similar. Sadly, most of these have cut back on their coverage because of insufficient advertising, but they still are the dream of most authors. With the exception of the NYT, several online sites that incorporate reviews are nearly as powerful: Slate, Bookslut, the Huffington Post. There are the lesser known but also high-quality sites and blogs—BiblioBuffet among them—that are exclusively book review sites or that review books as part of their offerings. What they all have in common is a well-designed product, fine writing, a passion for good books, and writing designed for readers seeking opinions on good books. In other words, they are the Parmigiano-Reggiano of the book world.

Over in the other corner are the Cheez Whiz of book review websites and blogs. Like vanity publishers, these are easily discernible by their pandering to authors, the inevitable bells and twinkles of amateur web design, and often poor writing. Not all of them do this, but it is not unusual for them to charge authors, not to get a book reviewed but to get it reviewed expeditiously. It’s still money, though, and it’s coming out of the author’s pocket.

Fact: Legitimate book review sites cater to readers. Excellent, legitimate book review sites cater to readers with high-quality writing, factual statements, honest opinions, insightful commentary. In other words, they know who their audience is and they care about that audience.

I dislike these “vanity review sites” as much as I do vanity publishers. The fuels upon which both feed are, in too many cases, naïveté and desperation. So next week I plan to do a compare-and-contrast analysis of two very different online review sites to highlight what one should look for and avoid regardless of whether one is an author or a reader.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

In a manner of speaking, they are changing. But only a bit. Our submission guidelines (for those seeking reviews) currently state this:

BiblioBuffet’s mission is to bring into the public eye high- quality books from small andmedium-size commercial publishers including university presses, though we review from large houses as well. We accept books, both fiction and nonfiction, in all genres except business, self-help, true crime, New Age, and romance. We do not review self-published or vanity-published books, which include but are not limited to those from Publish American, Vantage Press, Xlibris, iUniverse, Dorrance, Booklocker, and Lulu.

Two reasons exist for this: (1) it helps us manage our inflow by cutting down on the number of books we receive, and (2) it filters out books that lack any kind of editorial gatekeeping, that is, they have not been selected, paid for, and edited by houses whose goal is to sell books to the public.

When I originally wrote thes guidelines, I had in mind factors that would help determine how we would define a “commercial” press, especially because we wanted to find good books from smaller publishing houses. One of those factors was distribution. To keep it simple, I will say that distribution is the means by which publishers sell their books to the book buyers and owners of brick-and-mortar stores. Online stores, on the other hand, list every book that has an ISBN, a unique identifying number. The difference is important because online shopping, whether at Amazon, Powell’s, or your local independent store’s site, is rarely good for browsing. If you know what you want or if you are looking for a nonfiction title on a specific subject (“how to sail”) it can be excellent, but if you are a fiction reader wanting to browse new titles there is almost no way to . . . easily browse. You are up against millions of books. At physical bookstores, browsing is easy; you have fewer books but you have the ability to take them off the shelf, check out their cover art, skim the blurbs and jacket copy, and read enough to determine if it is a book you want to buy. These are comparison factors that can’t really yet—even with excerpts—be gotten online.

This is where recommendations come in. These could come from various sources: friends and family members whose taste you trust; book clubs; readers’ discussion forums like Dirda’s Reading Room, Book Balloon, LibraryThing, GoodReads; or some of the numerous excellent blogs and websites devoted to books and reading, whether they are connected to bookstores, magazines, or newspapers, or are run independently, and whether they specialize or are general.

As one of these general independent websites, BiblioBuffet takes its responsibilities to its readers seriously. We have what we believe to be some of the best writers around. We give them maximum freedom to find books that interest them, and we encourage them to write honestly.

One of our guidelines for reviews and reviewers, as noted above, is that we do not review self-published or vanity-published books. But that “rule” has loosened up a bit lately because we have run across a few—a very few—independently or self-published books that go above and beyond the usual self-published level. One of those was a book called Bound for Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad, issued by Dead Letter Press, a niche publisher of fine limited edition books of new and classic fantasy and horror fiction. DLP’s books do not have the traditional channel of distribution to bookstores. Instead, they must be ordered from the publisher’s website. But . . . these books are as carefully conceived, planned, and executed as any other—and more so than most.

More are coming too. Nicki Leone is working on a column about a new book of poetry, an unusual book in several ways (“about race in the south by the former NC poet laureate, printed in a limited letter press edition, selling for $100, with covers made from old pulped confederate flags”). And Pete Croatto recently e-mailed us to ask about the possibility of reviewing a self-published book he discovered that he feels is going to be fantastic.  (We said yes.) Neither of these books is going to be available through bookstores, but they are available. And because they are excellent you, our readers, deserve to know about them.

During our e-mail discussion with Pete over the book, Nicki wrote what I feel was a to-the-point summary of our goals: 

The most important thing is that BB’s writers have the freedom to write about what moves them. I trust all our columnists to understand when a book is worth reviewing and when it isn’t, so if you have found a self-published book that covers an important or interesting topic or event, or that you think is particularly well done, or brings up an interesting issue that you want to tackle, then that seems like enough justification to me to write about it. 

Lauren’s points about BB’s original criteria are worth keeping in mind, and should be honored for their intentions, if not followed to the letter. . . . if you do decide to review a self-published book, it needs to be evaluated as if it had received all the editorial work one expects from a traditional press. If it doesn’t show that level of craft—if the text is rambling, the typesetting bad, the cover looks like someone’s first Photoshop project, then the review needs to fault the book for it.

I don’t recommend changing the official submission policy, all the while keeping in mind internally that there may be a difference between “self-published” and “vanity” and that once in a blue moon the former can be considered, if one of our writers is interested enough or passionate enough about the book.

So while our original guidelines are not changing they are incorporating flexibility so that we at BiblioBuffet can continue to bring you news of books that offer “writing worth reading” and are “reading worth writing about.”

The Dark Side of Reviewing

What happens when a book comes in and proves to be (a) badly written, (b) boring, (c) error-ridden, (d) all of the above? Often it’s just tossed aside. There are far too many fine books that will never get reviewed due to space limitations, and there’s no point in wasting needed space.

Frankly, it’s easier and better to ignore them. Our goal at BiblioBuffet is to provide you, our readers, with our honest thoughts on the books we read so that you have the information you need to make a buying decision. Books are no longer inexpensive, and you want to be sure that what you are buying is worth your spending hard-earned dollars on them.

But sometimes, as Pete Croatto once pointed out, for a reviewer “there’s nothing quite so cathartic as writing a review full of vitriol, something that gets agents nervous and fans riled up. It’s like working over a punching bag for two hours. Plus, those reviews are easy to write, rage being an easily identifiable, uncomplicated emotion.”

Pete hit the reviewer’s nail ont the head. Such writing is cathartic but it should never be malicious. In a civilized world there would not be nasty reviews. There would be critical reviews. And there would be negative reviews. But meanness really has no place in the world of reviewing. Even if a reviewer hates the book because it is poorly written, the professional reviewer is morally obligated to tackle the review with strength and grace.

One of BiblioBuffet’s reviewers, for example, is currently struggling with an upcoming review of a “bad” book. Here is a brief excerpt from our  e-mail correspondence concerning why and how:

If a work is bad enough from beginning to end, I may savage it. I start off, you see, being really angry at all the things a book could have been. All my first notes are negative. It would be dead easy to turn into a kind of Dorothy Parker. Except that’s not who I am. The anger stems from concepts or abilities that are wasted, or writers who aren’t quite educated enough to pull off their magnificent plan. This means I spend a lot of time working out what the writer was trying to achieve and who their audience is and measuring them against that, or considering their work in the light of a broader concept. I still put the worries it . . . but I will very, very seldom (and then only with outstanding reason) go apply all those negatives I thought of at first. When I read reviews that do that, I always wonder why the reviewer bothered.

I’m always honest, but I also try to be pleasant.  So there is criticism in the article, but it’s worded as pleasantly as possible—and besides, the idea is to find the right readers for the right books, not to tear careers to pieces!

As far as I am concerned, this is the perfect description of a good book review regardless of what it says about the book. Its focus is the audience of the book. There are no personal attacks, no viciousness, no anger. Because there is no need for that. The work we at BiblioBuffet do—from the reviews that our reviewers write to the brilliant editing that Nicki Leone provides—is geared to and focused toward providing insightful, thoughtful, critical reviews of books we believe are “reading worth writing about.”

Advantage: Point

In tennis, there is a term called “advantage.” This happens when the two players have reached a kind of point stalemate called “deuce,” which requires that one of them win two consecutive points in order to win the game. The player who wins the next point after deuce is said to have the advantage. If that player wins the next point the game is hers. If not, the score returns to deuce. This will repeat itself until one player is able to score two points in a row and take the game.

In publishing, the line between vanity houses and trade houses has until quite recently been firmly anchored. In my opinion, as far as books are concerned, it’s still firm. Most self-published and vanity-published titles are godawful things. The rule of thumb is that somewhere around 95% of all manuscripts submitted to trade publishers are un-publishable. (Unsolicited manuscripts are the stuff of which nightmares are made as anyone who has ever worked with them knows painfully well.) Of that remaining five percent, most of those are rejected for various reasons, leaving a mere one percent or so of all manuscripts in the “pubishable” arena.

But with the technological advances in printing those formerly un-publishable manuscripts are now being printed. I’ve mentioned before that nearly three times the number of “non-traditional” books as “traditional” books are being issued but regardless of their classification they are all looking for publicity. That often includes book reviews.

BiblioBuffet is accustomed to receiving press releases, both print and electronic, e-mail requests, and books for our consideration. Some come from authors, but most are from publicists or publishing houses. It doesn’t matter to us. But what does matter is who publishes the book. Even before we opened our virtual doors, we had set a policy in place that precluded consideration of self-published and vanity-published books. In my previous work as books editor for a local newspaper I dealt with vanity-published books as well as with the slush pile in my earlier work as executive assistant for a local publisher. When the concept for BiblioBuffet started to metamorphose into a real site our submission page, one of the first written, was firmly grounded in those experiences. There are far too many excellent books produced by viable commercial and university presses that we’d never be able to get to so why add to that with books that were unlikely to be worthy of anyone’s reading? The answer was obvious. We excluded them from the get-go. It simply wasn’t worth our time to plow through what were sure to be haystacks of books seeking those very few golden needles.

So when I received a large box filled with books recently from Vantage Press I was astounded. Vantage Press is an old-time vanity house, having been around since long before technology made vanity publishing easy and inexpensive. To their credit, they have never been less than honest about their pay-to-play model, and their products are good-looking and durable. But given our policy, I had to politely e-mail the publicist and let her know that due to the nature of their model and our policies that we could not, unfortunately, consider any of their books for review. I wish her luck in her marketing efforts, and I sincerely meant it. And I assumed that was the end of that.

To my surprise she wrote back a couple of days later. Normally this is not a good thing since it is the point at which, in the past, the answer to me reflects an unhappy person with an urge to snark. But not in this case. She was kind and thoughtful, and had obviously read our policies and understood the reasons for them. And then she went on to point out that this old-time vanity house would, in spring 2011, be opening a new “traditional” branch called Vantage Point, one that intended to be a commercial publisher with all the bells and whistles (editorial gatekeepers, author advances, royalties, bookstore distribution, publicity and marketing) of any other commercial press, and that would compete in the public marketplace. They would offer eight books in their first season, she said, and would BiblioBuffet be willing to consider them for review.

The answer is yes. Yes, we will because it matters not that part of their enterprise is a vanity house. (A number of commercial publishers now offer vanity arms, and the two are kept, so to speak, at arm’s length.) It only matters that Vantage Point is going to have a regular trade division staffed with people from the commercial world.

Frankly, no one is more surprised than I. It will certainly be interesting to see how this works out. And who knows . . .  maybe we’ll find some darn fine books.

Has Anyone Seen My Jaw?

I dropped it this morning when I read this announcement by Publishers Weekly, the premier trade magazine for the publishing industry.

Yes, I know—believe me, I know—that magazines, even trade ones, are hurting for income. I also know that self-publishing and vanity-publishing are making inroads into what was once a tightly closed market. And I cannot say I am opposed to it. Electronic reading devices are slowly, but certainly, finding their way and their fans, and in my view that can only be a good thing. If anything, including format, encourages reading of books it is good.

Here’s what they are going to do: Introduce a quarterly supplement that announces the self-published titles that have been submitted to them within a certain period of time. The authors are going to be charged $149 as a “processing fee.” In return, their listing will include basic information such as author, title, price, ISBN (the unique identifier of each book). In return, PW promises that the “entire PW editorial staff will participate in a review of the titles being considered for review.” They will also include paid ads from companies offering services to self-published authors. What especially appalls me though, are two things. First, in addition to PW editorial staff who—call me cynical—are likely being dragged kicking and screaming into this PW says they will “invite agent friends and distributors” to be part of the process, “to have a look.” You can see their lawyers have been all over this because they add the caveat “no promises,” just “opportunity.”

Opportunity, my ass.

We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

First, PW is not doing any selecting at all. It is running ads from anyone who sends in a book and $149. True, they are choosing from those books those for which they will provide a review but that leads me to my second point: what if fewer than twenty-five of the books that come in have merit? Do they hold their noses and pick the least worst and review those? Will they force their reviewers to say nice things to balance out any criticism? (One review publication I applied to early on—and then turned down after learning of their rules—actually required this.) How can what they receive be indicative of any self-publishing trends in the industry? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say it is more indicative of what those who can afford the fee are writing? And my final point: who is going to read this supplement? Who will benefit by it?

Not the reading public who will almost never see these books in bookstores. Not trade or university publishers or literary agents who have enough publishable books coming to them that have not lost their literary virginity (AKA first rights). Not the authors who will be out $149 for an ad that very few people will see and even fewer care about. What about those lucky twenty-five? Good for them, but I suspect not so good for their books. Unfortunately, PW is not the first publication to take money from authors that the regular publication disdains. Another trade magazine, Kirkus, did it with their Kirkus Discoveries (KD) program for what they termed “independently published authors.” Their charges were a breathtaking $425 or, for express service, $575. For that you get an “experienced reviewer” who specializes not only in certain fields but has been “segmented” into genre specialties. To their credit, they clearly state that KD is “a caveat emptor service that gives honest, impartial evaluations of the titles we receive.”

Points for honesty.

KD reviews do not end up in Kirkus—they are online only, and the professionals who subscribe to Kirkus don’t see them unless they look specifically for them. Most don’t.

The problem I have with KD and now PW’s supplement is that they are marketing these programs to authors who are seeking publicity to get their books in front of readers and/or trade publishers who will buy rights to publish the books themselves. Many are frantic, even desperate, for good reviews, and their emotional vulnerability can lead them into situations where they can be taken advantage of.

To me, this move by PW is no different from sleazy online sites that run reviews and charge for “expedited” service. The only difference is in the name. PW and Kirkus are known names in the industry; sleaze sites—oh, how I would love to name some of them—are not. But regardless of their name value websites and publications that charge money are not looking out for their readers; they  are looking at their bottom line. They are taking money from self-published or vanity-published authors, most of whom have not written “publishable” books but who are desperate for publicity. This makes me gag, PW. You know why? Because once you sell your reputation you can’t take it back.

The World of “e”

I am a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), which recently sent a e-mail request to its members asking its members to write a guest post for their “Next Decade in Book Culture series.” The question was: Are you using e-galleys? If not, are you ready to make the switch?”

E-galleys are electronic versions of galleys or ARCs (advance reader copy) of books. These are often sent out to reviewers in advance of publication date, hoping that reviews will begin before or not long after the books hit the consumer market. There is something of a debate over them going digital. Certainly they are more cost effective for the publisher, but how many reviewers and review publications accept them?

Naturally, I turned to BiblioBuffet’s contributors for their answers. But let me begin by noting that at BiblioBuffet, the consensus from reviewers on e-galleys is a near-universal “no.” A few books being published now are going straight to e-book (just as some books are now issued as trade paperback originals, a relatively recent development). They will not be issued in any other format. So we at BiblioBuffet will miss those, but we also wonder if doing that is going to knock out a lot of readers as well as reviewers who might otherwise read them.

Our disagreement with only issuing the book in one format, particularly the electronic version, is that it eliminates a portion of the book’s audiences, and I am speaking of both the reviewing and the reading ones. If a book is issued only issued in hardcover, price will eliminate some readers. If it is issued only in trade paperback, publishers might miss those who prefer hardcover or e-book formats. If it is issued solely in mass market paperback, that would eliminate a lot of readers who don’t like the throwaway quality of these books. And if it is issued in e-book format only, and especially in only one version like the Kindle, the non-electronic audience—for whatever reason—is entirely dismissed.

We believe that it is foolish to eliminate certain aspects of your reading audience when readers themselves are not a large portion of the population. Can publishers afford to throw away readers? Can they afford to throw away reviewers?

We at BiblioBuffet are not for the most part using e-galleys, nor do we anticipate doing so in the foreseeable future. We do use online catalogs, which I view as a wonderful thing. They save money, time, and paper, and are easy to update. The only thing I would like to see is publishers sending links to them to reviewers on a regular basis because they know when a new one is out. It’s being pro-active about notifying reviewers, and with a database and e-mail groups it’s a relatively easy thing to do.

There is a site that reviewers can register at and request these electronic review copies—NetGalley. I have tried it. I found it most unsatisfactory. I work on the computer all day. Our publication is online. I read industry news, keep up with readers’ forums, and chat via e-mail—all on the computer. It is a relief when I can turn it off and open up a book with nothing electronic to distract me. It’s a a real mental, physical, and emotional break from that world into the one we call life where reading has always existed.

On the other hand we, as reviewers, are inundated with books. At BiblioBuffet, we hold that the books sent to us, whether ARCs or final versions are not to be profited from. Part of our official policy is that they cannot be sold. Would e-books help alleviate that deluge? As Nicki Leone, Managing Editor, put it:

I’m not against using e-galleys. In fact, ARCs and review galleys were the one thing I could originally see as being ideal for e-reader use, precisely because they are so transient and liable to change. (And because real, dead-tree review copies and galleys become something of a problem for an active reviewer in short order—you get so many of them, you can’t ethically sell them or give them away, it’s hard to destroy them, etc.)  But I haven’t adopted the practice yet because e-readers aren’t in my price range and the technology behind e-book formats hasn’t settled into any kind of real standard. Once that happens, though, and once the price of the technology comes down under $100, I’ll probably adopt them. Not for my “real” books I want to own—those have a lasting, permanent presence in my life that electronic media just can’t touch. But for better handling the literally dozens of books I am sent every week—a workable e-reader would be a godsend.  And once that happened, then I wouldn’t be adverse to reviewing e-book originals, as long as they met the same editorial standards BiblioBuffet requires of all the books it considers for review.

I also asked our other contributors to weigh in and got these responses:

David Mitchell, who focuses primarily but not exclusively on history, and World War II in particular, was more succinct: “I would not review an e-book unless there were NO bound books available anywhere in the English or French languages. I have tried the Sony Reader, Nook and Kindle. Unless the technology improves materially, I find that I cannot immerse myself in anything on one of those screens.”

Lauren Baratz-Logsted, a prolific children’s and young adult novelist, also has strong feelings that are applicable to reviewers who are also authors: “I’ve never used e-galleys and have no interest in making the switch. I spend all day in front of a computer as it is, writing, and have no wish to read review copies or pleasure reading on yet another electronic screen.”

Author Lev Raphael, is open to the possibility of e-readers but not for reviewing: “I have not been using them yet, and here’s why. I dislike the Kindle, don’t think it’s at all close enough to reading a book. I have, however, liked what I see with the iPad and intend to get the next model, because Apple will have to make one with Flash, HD Video, and a camera. My DroidX has those—why should I buy a reader that does less? I still do like physical galleys and though I can imagine turning to e-books some day, when I purchase the next model of iPad it will primarily be for reading on the road, not for review reading.”

Lindsay Champion, a writer and contributor to various publications, also opposes  electronic reading any  more than she does: “I spend my entire day staring at screens, and I read traditional books to allow my strained eyes to relax. The last thing I want to do is increase the amount of time I look at a computer, Kindle, or other electronic device. If I am considering a book for review, it may be helpful to check out the e-galley first to see if I’m interested in the writing style and subject matter, but when it comes to sitting down and reading the book, I would prefer to read a traditional, printed copy.”

Australian contributor Gillian Polack is actually the only reviewer who does use e-galleys, and the reason is that she is a historian (going for her second doctorate). “I use quite a few electronic reproductions of historical texts in my research. I just gave Nicki an article where I read all the books from downloaded versions. I think that the accessibility of nineteenth century books through libraries online has been a major factor in me being willing to review using electronic galleys,” she noted. As for the books she reviews:

I review using e-galleys, but I way prefer the print version and will choose it whenever I have that option. I also limit the number of e-galleys I’m prepared to accept in a given time—never more than four a month until they’re more reader friendly. I don’t have a dedicated e-reader—just use my desktop or netbook. The netbook means I can take work with me when I travel and settle down to read a review book on the bus. It’s not perfect by any means and my ideal interface is still with dead trees and rags, but if it means someone will let me see a UK or US book I would like to review and that otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to buy locally after release, then I’ll say “yes, please.” In my current to-be-reviewed pile I have five paper books (three academic, two SF) and one e-book. This is a good ratio.

Pete Croatto, who is a longtime reviewer and now focuses on sports books for BiblioBuffet, noted: “Would have to agree with everyone else. I find that I read a book with more depth and care than what’s on a screen. In fact, Nicholas Carr in The Shallows pretty much says as much. Plus, I find that a relationship with a book—whether it’s a galley, hardcover, whatever—is one that’s pretty intimate. And that’s one I’d like to maintain.”

For me, the founder and editor-in-chief of BiblioBuffet, I can say I was one of the earliest sign-ups with NetGalley. But I have no intention of printing out books and sitting down with unbound pages. And while I have had the opportunity to see, admire, and try both a Kindle and the iPad, and I like both, I have no interest in reading on another screen. It’s possible I might do it if I traveled a lot. Even if I did I doubt I would buy fewer books than I do now. It’s important to me to have them in my home. And it’s equally important to have the books I do review in bound editions. I find it easier to make notes, to mark passages, and to remember when I can flip through pages, make mental connections, and check things. (Yes, I realize e-readers can do all these things too, but having done it this way for so long I have to say that practice makes perfect.) But the primary reason I will not review e-galleys is that I want to get away from screens—and temptations like e-mail—when I can.

In addition to our reviewers, our audience seems to favor books over e-books too. But the fact that many of the books are available in both formats is a plus since an enthusiastic review of a good book gives interested readers a choice of format based on their preference—and giving readers what they want is key. To me, that means more choices, not fewer. But as far as our reviewers go? At BiblioBuffet, e-books, whether original or just another version of the paper book, will not be eligible for review consideration. Not now, and probably not for a long time. But we’re not worried. Given what Bowker said about the number of traditional books published in 2009, we have a long way to go before we run out of review possibilities.

And if all that is not a good enough reason to stick to books rather than electronic gadgets, there’s this from writer Diane Lefer:

Several years ago–and this is a warning to all you writers out there–I lost my eyesight for eight months when too much staring at the screen made all the focusing muscles go slack. When I could read, write, and drive again, I began to limit my hours at the screen. This spring, when my right eye started going blurry, I panicked. This time around, the doctor says my muscles are physically fine, but my brain is no longer communicating properly with my right eye. My left eye is good. I limit my hours at the computer. I function.

There really is life and health outside the virtual world. Let’s make sure we keep our hands and eyes as healthy as our minds.

On (Not) Cursing Reviewers

Maybe I should have titled this “On (Not) Killing Reviewers” because lord knows that many authors don’t like us. Oh, they’ll use us as part of their promotional plan and if that includes a bit of fawning well, so be it. But the truth is they don’t like us. In fact, I suspect that in authorial circles book reviewers would be as welcome as fleas would be to a cat.

Jessa Crispin, founder and owner of Bookslut, the original and popular online book review/commentary site, recently posted an “answer” to an author who e-mailed one of her reviewers in response to a review of the author’s book. The author was unhappy. The author was apparently not nice in how she expressed her unhappiness. But what really got Ms. Crispin’s back up was that the author asked—demanded, I suspect—that the site run a revised review. They won’t.

Bad mistake. Unfortunately, the author is not the first one to do this. Alice Hoffman didn’t just express her dissatisfaction to the editor of the Boston Globe who ran a review about which Hoffman was unhappy. Instead she repeatedly tweeted her views, calling the reviewer “a moron” in one, stating that “any idiot can be a critic” in another, but most appallingly broadcasting her phone number and e-mail address in a tweet that encouraged Hoffman’s fans to tell her “what u think of snarky critics.”

Alain de Botton went even further, attacking his book’s critic on the critic’s blog, noting that “I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make.” (He did apologize later, but his apology is more for the fact that the comment is out there basically forever than for the comment itself.)

Of course Anne Rice ‘s 2004 outburst has yet to be topped. The book that was, unfortunately, edit-free, garnered negative comments among her fans on Amazon. She lost her temper badly, telling them that their “stupid, arrogant assumptions . . . are slander,” and that they  have “used the site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehoods and lies.”

Nasty. And unwarranted. When writers get to the point where they think that they are beyond improvement, beyond criticism, beyond being a decent  human being then perhaps they are beyond needing readers. They are certainly, in my opinion, beyond attention. I would be willing to bet that particular author who demanded asked Bookslut for a revision of the review will never again get a book of hers reviewed at that site. I know she wouldn’t get a second chance at BiblioBuffet. Her reputation would be shot.

Lev Raphael, an author as well as a BiblioBuffet book reviewer, in response to my e-mail about the incident quoted a line from the fourth in his academic murder mystery series, Little Miss Evil: “Stefan had written a witty, angry, insulting letter to the reviewer, which I read on his computer screen and suggested he delete, using a line I’d used before: ‘Do you want to be known as a fine writer or a maniac?’ ”

Good question.

A Story of Statistics

No matter what your college class was like, I am here to tell you that statistics are not boring. In fact, they can tell quite a story. Here’s this week’s story:

Once upon a time there was a company named Bowker. This company is the keeper of all bibliographic information and does everything from issuing ISBNs to compiling statistics on the industry. Every year Bowker releases information on how things are going in terms of book production. Depending on one’s perspective the information can be good or bad, but regardless of how it is perceived it is essential information that drives all players in it. The annual report for 2009 was released in April, and I thought it might be fun to see how it could impact BiblioBuffet if we chose to let it. Bear in mind this is only a game. First the facts:

Fact 1: In every year, excepting leap years, there are 525,949 minutes.
Fact 2: Bowker has projected that a total of 288,355 traditional titles were released in 2009.
Fact 3: Bowker has projected that a total of 764,448 non-traditional titles were released in 2009.

Now, let’s take a quick detour to define traditional and non-traditional titles. Traditional titles are those that come from commercial publishers including university houses. Non-traditional titles, and I am quoting Bowker here, are “books, marketed almost exclusively on the web, . . . largely on-demand titles produced by reprint houses specializing in public domain works and by presses catering to self-publishers and ‘micro-niche’ publications.” In other words, these are books you are much less likely if at all to see on any bookstore shelf.

Moving on, let’s take the facts we quoted above, whirl them up a bit in the blender, and see what comes out. With 525,949 minutes and 288,355 books per year that  means that in 2009 one “traditional” book was published every two minutes. Around the clock. No meal breaks. No weekends or holidays. No sleep. Every two minutes a new book came out. (Of that number, fiction accounted for 45, 181 books that year meaning a novel was published every 11.6 minutes. And remember, this is just for “traditional” books.)

Non-traditional books by themselves are projected to total 764,448. That’s more than three-quarters of a million of those books in just one year, which means that during every one of those 525,949 minutes 1.5 non-traditional books was published. Again, around the clock.

Is it any wonder that BiblioBuffet has established review guidelines for book submissions that excludes, for the most part, these non-traditional books? Even if the quality was equal to what the commercial/university presses put out—and it’s nowhere near that—it would simply be impossible.

Going on with a bit more math—and don’t worry, I’ve done it all for you—here is what would happen if BiblioBuffet did attempt to review every commercially published book. We would need 10,114 reviewers writing every other week to cover them all. In just one year. Just for “traditional” books.

If we were to consider adding the non-traditional books (for a total of 1,052,803 books)  we would need an unimaginable 40,492 reviewers writing bi-weekly to cover them all.

My head. It hurts.

My point is that while statistics can lie, they can also point up some real truths. It is impossible to know even a respectable percentage of what is out there. We can only pick and choose the books that interest us from the books we know about. It’s limited, but it’s also the best we can do.

Digging for Literary Gold

“If the New York Times or Washington Post or People have reviewed it, the book is likely not a good fit for BiblioBuffet.” This was the message I e-mailed back yesterday to the publicist who contacted me about a book that has been widely and excellently reviewed. It’s not that we are opposed to great books. On the contrary, we are always looking for those.

But we prefer to focus our attention on books that haven’t and likely won’t get that level of attention, not because they aren’t worth it but because limited print space allows for few reviews compared to the number of books published annually, and because in at least some, but more probably in many, cases “names” tend to be chosen. It makes sense in some ways because a new Sue Grafton will sell in the millions. More USA Today readers will buy it than they would a mystery by a relatively unknown writer of equal quality. And those readers’ ties to both the newspaper and the book will strengthen.

We at BiblioBuffet would far rather introduce you to that new writer. It’s why I often emphasize to the contributors that they should explore the online catalogs of smaller and mid-size publishers, including university presses, than depend on the e-mail press releases that arrive regularly in our in-boxes. It’s why one of my ten databases is named publishers, and lists more than 200 of those publishers (and is still growing). It’s why I present a small blurb about a publisher each week in my editor’s letter, talking about a house’s focus and a couple of its books.

Though most of them have distribution and can be found in bookstores, you probably won’t find most of the books the smaller presses have in your local bookstore simply because of space. There’s never enough of it. So I try to encourage our readers as much as I do our contributors to go outside the norm, go outside the “names”,” go outside their comfort one. BiblioBuffet, after all, was founded on the premise that there is “gold in them thar hills” (of publishing). We don’t want to run with the crowd. We like to dig around for our nuggets. So why not do a little digging of your own. You never know what you will find, but I can tell you it sure will be fun to find out.