The first panel on my list was The Art of the Book Reviewer. Our panelists were:
- Michael Marc Levy: editor at Extrapolation, reviews SF for Publishers Weekly & New York Review of Science Fiction.
- Sarah Frost (@dovekie): has reviewed for Strange Horizons & is a serious Goodreads reviewer.
- Charles Payseur (@ClowderofTwo): reviews on his own site, Goodreads, and Nerds of a Feather.
- Brooke Wonders (@BrookeJWonders): Editor with North American Review and review contributor for Entropy and elsewhere.
- Differences in blogging vs. print or otherwise-centralized book reviews. Generally discussed as a good thing--democratization & increase in voices.
- However, as with so many things, now the task is sifting through a ton of information to find the reviewers who we trust & enjoy.
- (We didn't talk about how quantitative reviewing, coupled with big user groups, affects sales/reception. That's something I've been getting interested in.)
- Limitations on "what can be reviewed" based on publication venue. Charles, for instance, specializes in reviewing short forms like flash & poetry, which typically aren't available as a "reviewable object" on Goodreads etc.
- Reviewing and lists as signal-boosts, "what's everybody reading" round-ups, "show me your shelf" phenomena.
- Fan/writer history of reviews and how that has shaped the genre--dropping names like Blish, Budrys, Knight, Merrill, with Jo Walton being a prominent modern example.
- Good line from Michael: "You have to be careful to review the book for what it is, not the book you want it to be."
- Pros/cons of "unmanicured" reviews and visceral responses.
- Brooke & Michael both talked about the very structured approach they take (depending on venues) in reviews.
- Much discussion of review audience and purpose of a review. Nice range of purposes.
- Publishers Weekly is for booksellers: what it is, if to sell it, how to talk about it.
- More academic & otherwise high-brow reviews build on the work, are a continued engagement with and processing of it, less of a "read this or don't read this."
- Reviews that signal boost; quick recommendations/disrecommendations to a group that trusts the reviewer.
- Largely personal reaction reviews that will nonetheless help other people work out how they feel about it.
- Audience question: "do you avoid negative reviews?" A vexed question! Lots of discussion on this. General consensus seemed to be that writing negative reviews is intensely pleasurable but should probably be kept to a minimum. Much talk on how different publications have infrastructure to prevent matching up reviewers with books they'll hate.
- Question of "what's quality" leads to a long discussion. Some really delightful slamming of "extruded fantasy product" and the stench of rampant commercialism. But also a good discussion of how what's important and good about a book depends on reader; Curious George used as an example of books that anyone capable of reviewing will be bored by, but nonetheless have a lot of importance and value.
- Previous question is clarified: "what do you look for in a review in terms of quality?" Couple different ideas on that.
- The importance of convincing interpretations in a review--is there evidence, examples, is the reviewer's take on the book well-argued.
- Michael talked about breaking reviews into 3 categories that had people nodding their heads:
- Reviews for books I don't know if I'm going to read yet--looking to be persuaded or dissuaded.
- Reviews for books I know I'm not going to read, but I need to be able to talk about, think about, or sell them, so I need to know the gist.
- Reviews for books I know I am going to read--these are reviews I want to wait for until after I've read the book, and then I want them to deepen my experience.
- Audience question about how self-publishing is affecting reviewing. General consensus is that quality disparity is obviously much higher, but that there are some fascinating and sometimes unexpectedly best-selling stuff out there--Howey's Wool, Weir's The Martian, etc.
- "How do you approach spoiling in a review?" Everyone made the caveat that they try to warn the audience when it's coming. However (these are a little paraphrasey):
- Brooke: "No, I just summarize. I'm a monster." [LAUGHTER]
- Michael: "At the NYRSF, it's assumed the audience has read it."
- Charles: "You need to have a clearly stated policy about spoilers so you don't surprise readers with it." That said, "How do you not spoil flash fiction?"
- Sarah: "Sometimes you need more spoiler-y critical reviews so you can get an idea what that book's all about when you know you're going to read it."
- Audience comment: "We need more intertextual reviews of speculative poetry so that it forms more of a coherent genre."
- To audience questions about getting more into reviewing:
- Sarah sez: write to Strange Horizons and ask them for books to review!
- Brooke: American Review pays $50 a review.
- Panel at large: have some good examples of your reviews you can use as writing samples--on Goodreads, blogs, etc.
- Follow-up question about when to stop reviewing on Amazon/Goodreads if you're trying to go pro. Panel and audience both caution that you don't own your words on either of those, especially Amazon. However, if you are moving in a more serious direction you can still do brief reviews on sites like that, and then link to your full review somewhere else.
- Audience question about timeliness of reviews: panel responds that yes, a lot of the serious review sites are focusing on new releases. More scholarly/high brow venues have a longer timeframe, often out to the two-year mark. Reviews of older work still valuable, though, and a big part of many reviewing communities.
- Audience question about what kind of feedback reviews get:
- Panel talks firstly about how great feedback is, so you know you're not in a vacuum--not always the case!
- To audience question about whether authors talk to reviewers, Michael & Brooke share a few anecdotes about authors liking/respecting reviews even if they disagreed with the conclusions about their own books.
- Charles gets serious for a moment and points out that, in popular, easily-accessible venues, trolling and threats are an actual concern, more often from fans who disagree with your review. Emphasizes the importance of having some kind of moderating ability on comments.
- Finally, a list of some places, reviewers, and books to check out:
- Obviously, check the links for the panelists above.
- Book Smugglers
- Locus Magazine
- A.C. Wise's new "Words for Thought" column in Apex.
- New Pages reviews: more on the lit side, sometimes reviews reviews!
- Abigail Nussbaum
- Rahul Kanakia's blog.
- William H. Gass's Finding a Form (1996)
- Mary Ruefle's Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012)
More Wiscon recaps on the way, now that I've slept for 24 hours to make up for the weekend.
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