Comments on: No Raves for Critics in ‘Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America’ http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/ Janice Harayda Reviews Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry for Adults and Children Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:28:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/#comment-5650 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:58:01 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=796#comment-5650 What’s Quill and Scroll? (It had the right idea, though.)

]]> By: knightofswords http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/#comment-5649 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:21:31 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=796#comment-5649 My father reviewed books for years for Quill & Scroll Magazine, a thousand or so, I’d say, and he always filled out cards or forms to request the book he covered. Every once in a while, a rogue book would show up; but mostly, only those he requested.

I like the idea of reducing the flood!

Malcolm

]]> By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/#comment-5644 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:44:06 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=796#comment-5644 Malcolm: A partial solution might be simpler than a book budget. Editors could say to publishers: Don’t send me any books I don’t request.

How would editors know what to request? They could go through catalogs, read press releases and do other research (a variation on the process used by travel editors to decided what places they want to visit). This would not end the problem because they’d still be taking free books, but it would reduce the floodtide.
Jan

]]> By: knightofswords http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/#comment-5643 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:35:36 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=796#comment-5643 Hmmm, should have proofread my comment before pushing the big red button. In graph two, my intent was to say that when a reviewer receives a glut of books, some will say that his/her own reviewing preferences will trump the fact that a few more books from one publisher than another are stacked up in the mail room.

M

]]> By: knightofswords http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/no-raves-for-critics-in-%e2%80%98faint-praise-the-plight-of-book-reviewing-in-america%e2%80%99/#comment-5642 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:31:41 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=796#comment-5642 Free books have been such a tradition in the review business, the practice is going to be hard to stop. Some will say that a free and unsolicited book on one’s doorstep serves the same function as an advertisement–it informs the recipient of a product they would otherwise not know about.

Others will say that if, as we hear, some book review editors receive hundreds of books a week, far more than they’ll ever read, much less review, that the fact a few more of them came from publisher ABC than XYZ, that reviewer choice is going to have more weight in the decision to review or not to review.

Be that as it may, is the solution simply to have a book budget and a stack of catalogues from every publisher on the planet? It sounds fair to me, though implementing it will, I fear, guarantee that the number of papers doing reviews will decrease; or they’ll be like book store managers who listen to the fastest talking book reps from the big NY publishers in deciding what to buy.

As for “astonishing,” any good copyeditor would red pencil that after seeing it more than 2-3 times in a week.

Malcolm

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