Views on Reviews

Always an avid reader, I debated the merits at age thirteen of becoming a librarian or a book reviewer. At the time, I didn't realize that literary types often did many different jobs dealing with books, and simultaneously.

Since then I've worked as a home-service librarian among the Amish of eastern Ohio and as a "book appreciator," rather than a literary critic with an advanced degree in literature. While I make no claim to erudition, I know what I like and, conversely, what leaves me nonplussed when reading. I can discern the lyrical from the prosaic, the extraordinary from the mundane.

Several years ago, I began reviewing books for such sites as NewPages.com and CurledUpWithAGoodBook.com and the print magazine Foreword. Now, I find myself asking others to review books for the site I edit: 360MainStreet.com. With an optimistic attitude, I prefer to point out what I find to be effective or beautiful about a work in the reviews I write and leave the lambasting of poor works to others--at least in print. I don't ignore flaws, however; I simply try to balance my positive and negative assessments.

I was recently turned off when I read the submission page of a small press at which the publisher encouraged its authors to boost their own books by writing laudatory reviews under false names at sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and LuLu (or other self-publishing enterprises). This unethical suggestion appalled me as much as the review companies that charge authors hundreds of dollars to review an author's book, paying the actual reviewers a small fraction of this fee. Although these companies don't guarantee a good review, they guarantee the work will be reviewed, and the author will be free to use the review for whatever purposes s/he desires.

With review space in even the most major print media diminishing rapidly and the number of books being published annually still rising due to self-publishing, I can appreciate the dilemma of writers wanting to promote their works in print and online, and a number of online review sites have arisen to fill the vacuum left by the print media.

Yet, for many writers, particularly those new writers, paying a manuscript doctor/coach to critique a work in progress is more valuable than paying for a review that may be worthless because very negative, or, if good, possibly be overly appreciative and thus a disservice to a writer who may have been better served in the long run by an honest critique.

When assigning books to reviewers for 360MainStreet.com, I try to match the book in question with a reviewer who'll likely appreciate that particular book because--yes, I'd like a good review, but also--I can only pay the reviewer with the copy of the book and hopefully with the pleasure reading it and earning publication credits might bring. I demand honesty of the reviewers. "Feel free to point out weaknesses as well as strengths," I instruct them. I do this as a gift to the authors because a falsely appreciative review harms the author's work more than an honestly negative one would.

If you, or someone you know is interested in reviewing books or music CDs, please contact me at Editor[at]360MainStreet.com.