ROBUST discussion

A horror story. Mind you, you don't necessarily do any better doing it the hard way. There is a serious problem in the market in that Amazon has enabled every amateur and wannabe to have an opinion, an given them value-free space to spout their "review". A particularly grim problem is people for whom a book is not intended giving it a low rating because "it is not my kind of thing", a faux pas a professional critic won't perpetrate.

It's nigh impossible to get the desirable kind of reviews. Popular book bloggers are now "busy" all the time, relishing their roles as gatekeepers. I sort of understand that; I accept a lot of ARCs myself, but I am super slow, and I rarely guarantee a review-by date; but this doesn't fully apply, since I am an interview blogger, not a review blogger, and mainly take ARCs for networking purposes.

When I looked into review bloggers in the past, I found some of them to be using rhetoric like literary agents, stating "I accept very few clients and only those of exceptional quality" and requiring authors sedulously to study "what I like" as if they have extra-large priapic organs before which we must bow.

I have a couple of review bloggers who have become fans, and I just work with them. If others come along, I will work with them as well. I try to be really nice to everyone. I just think that's the right way in this business as well as it being the way I naturally am.

"Organic" reviews from real readers are incredibly fricking rare outside certain genres. While my organic reviews are just as good as reviews by people I know, they are devastatingly few. I still have books with NO organic reviews whatsoever, even though they do sell copies every month.

I tried review-trading early on, but it has been squelched by public and Amazonian negativity, so now I just review books when asked and don't ask anyone and just hope things work out (which they don't).

Paid reviews doesn't seem like an option for me. There is a powerful stink on them, as you note, Nathaniel.
I have started to recognize the work of certain paid-review services -- they result in two-to-three-line reviews that praise one aspect (characters, storyline) and say "I want more" or "I can't wait for the next one." I don't know what service provides them, but they are the shits.

It's a difficult area. As the coordinator for the Awesome Indies and an author and reviewer myself, I know all sides of this issue. We have so many requests and so few reviewers willing to read (it's not easy to get ones with the qualifications we require), that the only way to ensure that a book is read is for me to offer some money as an incentive. These guys give comprehensive well-considerd reviews, so they deserve it.
At the same time, I will never condone a system where authors do not have the option of a free review, and if you pay for a review, you can't put it on Amazon - it's against their policy - which defeats the purpose of most authors wanting reviews. So ... we offer reviews for free - if you're happy to wait to get in and wait for someone to pick up your book - or you can give a donation to the site, some of which I use to encourage a reviewer to read your book. It's not considered payment for a review because the donation is to the site, not to the reviewer.
Our reviewers will only read something they're interested in, but to keep it totally fair across the board, even if you give a donation, you can still end up with a one star review same as for those who don't pay. But that depends entirely on the the quality of your book. Without that honesty, we lose our integrity.
However, we do also offer a One Stop Submission service for site listing that is like a double beta read from 2 reviewers and you can choose whether or not you want their feedback posted as a review. You do pay for the service, and though you get total honesty privately, you don't risk publication of low starred reviews.
I'm paying for a blog tour, hoping that I'll get enough reviews out of that to pump up my Amazon totals, but the money is for the organisers not for the reviews, and there's no guarantee you'l get a certain number. Getting replies back from revieweres I've approached myself is virtually impossible these days, so I've given up on that. I share your frustration.

Tahlia wrote: "However, we do also offer a One Stop Submission service for site listing that is like a double beta read from 2 reviewers and you can choose whether or not you want their feedback posted as a review. You do pay for the service, and though you get total honesty privately, you don't risk publication of low starred reviews."

When publishers still accepted and considered unsolicited manuscripts, they had *readers* who were often also freelance reviewers for one or the other of the broadsheets, editorial staff between jobs, retired editors, trusted and experienced writers on their lists, favourite tutors from their old colleges being given an opportunity to earn a few quid.

Some member of the editorial staff would look at each manuscript, read a page or two, and if it drew him in, read perhaps ten pages. The ones that weren't instantly rejected went out to a reader for a *report*. This could be a couple of paragraphs on a sheet, perhaps two typewritten pages, hardly ever more. It was a brief summary of type of novel, structure, high and low points, a judgement on competence, and above all on whether it would fit that publisher's list. It might conclude, "No for you (us)," or "Worth consideration," or "Possible, with work," or, most often, with the single word of advice, in NY usually "Reject," in the UK often "Decline," meaning that the slight promise of the early pages weren't borne out by an professional quality, or simply that the writer had offered the book to the wrong publishing house.

What the Reader's Report was NOT was a plan for fixing a novel that was nearly there but had structural or other failures. It wasn't even a comprehensive list of problems. It was a short document that could be, and usually was, fairly widely distributed within the organization, going from the editor who decided to go to bat for a novel to the publisher, other editors, the marketing and sales managers, the PR people, often the lawyers. Any or all of these could throw a dampener on progress towards publication.

Normally publishers would not even tell writers of the existence of the Reader's Report, and certainly not give him the thing, with its potential for causing hurt feelings and discord. But I was an insider much demonstrated to be an unremitting rationalist, a very hard case, so I collected the reader's reports on my novels. I'll tell you what, if you're ever short of a reason to feel sorry for yourself, or you have a touch of the swollen heads, read the early reader's reports on even your most successful books, and you'll feel sorry for yourself for a week.

Andre Jute wrote: When publishers still accepted and considered unsolicited manuscripts, they had *readers* who were often also freelance reviewers for one or the other of the broadsheets, editorial staff between jobs, retired editors, trusted and experienced writers on their lists, favourite tutors from their old colleges being given an opportunity to earn a few quid.

Which also changed in structure as the market evolved from 20 years ago to today.

I was at a conference in Austin, Texas back in 2000, right after the non-sense of the Y2K disaster that was fostered by the mainstream media. At the time, I was working for Dell Computers, Inc and writing part time.

The word at the Conference, which included a rep from Del-Ray and Saturn Books (Before Saturn books got bought and absorbed by one of the Big Boys back then) there was a warning that came dreadfully true.

"Before a decade slides by, your novels won't be accepted so much by a purchasing editor anymore, but by a marketing division who won't be reading your content, but deciding if your theme and brand is going to entice people to buy."

I've heard this has came true about 5 years ago, though I can't confirm it.

Andre Jute wrote: "Tahlia wrote: "However, we do also offer a One Stop Submission service for site listing that is like a double beta read from 2 reviewers and you can choose whether or not you want their feedback po..."

After all the reviewimg i've done for the Awesome Indies, i now understand why publishing houses never told authors anything ... they tend to argue or sob all over you or be rude. I also understand why they stop reading after page 1 or 5; you get to be able to pick the ones that are going nowhere very quickly. Doing a lot of reiewimg is good training for authors, you learn to see your own work more objectively.

Daniel wrote: "Andre Jute wrote: When publishers still accepted and considered unsolicited manuscripts, they had *readers* who were often also freelance reviewers for one or the other of the broadsheets, editoria..."

I had an agent in 2010, and she told me that 5 years previously, my book wouod have been snapped up. I almost scored a deal with a big Aussie publisher, the reason they decided against it was for one reason only ... the aquisitions editor said she loved it, but the marketting depqrtment didn't think they xould sell it, so, no deal. They were right ... i can't sell it either, but then i'm not a book sales pro ...

It was always true in a certain level of publishing, Daniel, for as long as I've been in publishing anyway. It was only at the very top of the quality end of literature, a mickey mouse fraction of books published, maybe a few hundred volumes, a thousand max in a really good year, that books were published on quality alone, for their literary value. In London between say 1960 and 1990 in this class there was only three small publishers, my own, Secker & Warburg, Jonathan Cape, and Faber & Faber. In NY there were my own publishers, W W Norton, certain divisions of St Martin's (with whom I also published), some divisions of Random and S&S. It was very easy to conduct a count of the quality books published and not expected to earn a profit because there were so few and everyone was so pleased about getting them through, they couldn't stop talking about it. so you heard a disproportionate amount about them. But 99.995% of trade publishing was driven by the marketing department, who had the final yes-power, same as in the movies, though the smartest marketing bosses tried to wield their big stick invisibly. Just check how many CEOs of that period had risen through marketing or served time there on their way up. It's just more obvious now down on factory floor, where the writers labour.

Andre Jute wrote: "It was always true in a certain level of publishing, Daniel, for as long as I've been in publishing anyway. It was only at the very top of the quality end of literature, a mickey mouse fraction of ..."

Thank you for the update, Andre. I've been meditating on that, but for slightly different reasons than the tone of the post you replied too. That will clear up with my next statement, in a way. You're a good man Andre. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

I miss you, Lester Del Ray. Rest in peace, you old billy goat. You were right. You. Were. Right.