Everyone loves a librarian, except when that librarian is also a reviewer for Kirkus. In addition to writing reviews on my personal blog, I've worked as a professional reviewer for seven years. One moment, publishers quote reviews I've written in their ads. The next, an author calls me a bitter, failed writer because I dared to give his book an unfavorable review. Reviewing for professional journals is both a joy and a challenge for many librarians. Those of us who review do it because we enjoy sharing our opinions and writing about books (and the free review copies don't hurt, either). What's frustrating, however, is the lack of understanding that often comes from readers, authors, and even our fellow librarians when they don't understand why we wrote what we did. This week, I've interviewed Vicky Smith, children's book editor at Kirkus Reviews, and Linda Benson, book review editor at Voice of Youth Advocates, about the process of reviewing for professional journals and how books are chosen for review.

Who are your reviewers?  How are reviewers chosen for journals?

Linda Benson: Our reviewers are volunteers from across the nation and Canada. I've touched on the application and selection process above, but most are librarians, educators, or library and teacher educators. Some are booksellers or have been in that field. We require a sample review with the application to test a potential reviewer's ability to adhere to our guidelines and create a coherent review. If the sample is accepted, a provisional book is assigned, further guidelines expressed, and then if that review is also cogent, we're on our way. We do expect at least three years working with teens in some way to ensure familiarity with reading habits and taste.

Vicky Smith: Kirkus's reviewers are mostly librarians. Because Kirkus's primary market is librarians, it makes sense for our writers to have that understanding of the audience in mind as they approach a book. Will it make for a great storytime read-aloud? A fruitful discussion-starter? Also, because librarians tend to have a much broader familiarity with the world of books already available, they can comment knowledgeably about a new book's relationship to what's gone before. Is it just like every other dead pet book in the children's room or does it do something different? Will it provide something new for those teens who are avid for vampire books or is it the same old stuff? Does it replace THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS INSIDE A BEEHIVE--or is it so duplicative that librarians would be better served simply by buying a fresh copy of the old standby?

I really can't speak for how reviewers are chosen elsewhere, but I look for the following qualities, in no particular order:

1. Broad familiarity with children's and/or YA literature and the ways kids and teens use books.
2. The ability to turn in clean copy on deadline.
3. Special expertise in certain areas--science writing, LGBTQ, multicultural and ethnic understanding, emergent literacy, art and so on--is a huge plus.
4. A fresh and flowing literary style. Kirkus aims for each review to be a 175-word literary gem in itself as well as an authoritative comment on the book in question. Whether we always achieve this is open to debate, but it is our goal.


Do you have any advice for getting your small press/independently published book reviewed in a journal?

LB: First, writers should make certain that their work has been professionally edited. If a work has been rejected by a mainstream publisher, there are reasons. Too often, in the rush to publication, an aspiring author considers his or her work a finished product. It is not complete until it has seen at least one more set of eyes—and not mom or dad or sister Kate. This person should have professional copyediting skills that can identify and express when a work does not flow, when dialogue is forced, or when characterization does not ring true. Beyond the issue of grammar and punctuation, a professional copyedit should identify issues of plot, telling not showing, and possible didactic point of view, among others. Check cover art. Does it look like an elementary school student and his box of crayons have been at work? Teens are proven to be drawn to attractive covers. Good editors work with their authors to create the best possible work.

VS: First, make sure you understand each journal's submissions requirements. Kirkus, for instance, is a prepublication journal, so we need ARCs in hand at least three months ahead of publication, and because I work from home but the administrative details are taken care of in the New York office, we need ARCs in both places, if you're submitting children's or YA books.

Also, Kirkus doesn't review self-published material. Sometimes it's very hard to tell the difference between self-published books and books from small presses. Making sure your presentation is as professional-looking as possible helps--copyedit your press releases  as carefully as you do your books.

Keep in mind that any journal editor is juggling deadlines and many physical books and won't always be able to respond to emails. Once again, knowing whom you're submitting to makes a world of difference. Although we do some interviews in our supplements, Kirkus does not do any interviews, Q&As, feature pieces or the like in our magazine, so if you offer me the opportunity to interview your author, don't be surprised if I don't take you up on it--it's just not my focus.


Why do some books seem to get reviewed in all the major journals, while others might get only one or two journal reviews, or none at all?

LB: For VOYA, selection of titles for review is based on space available, relevance of theme or topic, popularity or promise of popularity of author, good cover (I remain a teen at heart), and quite frankly, whether or not we actually receive the book. We match books to reviewers' preference and ability. There is a lengthy and detailed selection process in which potential reviewers indicate interest and preferences. Sometimes there is just not a good match of available reviewers and books under consideration. And let's face it, with 4,000 or more books arriving on our shelves yearly, some will fall by the wayside.

VS: Again, know your journals. In the children's and YA worlds, not all journals review all books. Booklist and Horn Book, for instance, are selective, and rarely publish negative reviews (although the Horn Book Guide reviews everything). If you've submitted a book to Booklist or Horn Book and it's not reviewed, you can assume that their respective editorial boards looked it over and decided it was not a book they'd recommend.

Kirkus does its best to review just about everything, with some caveats. We rarely review paperback originals, unless they're from a small press that doesn't do anything but. Also, although I understand the truism that there's no such thing as bad publicity, I operate on the general principle that a small, independent press doesn't need a crushing Kirkus review. If I receive a submission from a small press and I don't think it's got a good chance at a positive review, I probably won't assign it, unless it fills some kind of niche. I feel it's important to weigh in with negative reviews on books with a lot of publicity backing them up--if they deserve it, of course—because book selectors need to have a full spectrum of reviews to consider in their purchasing decisions.

Are you more or less likely to send out a book for review if you know that other journals will be reviewing it as well?

VS: I don't think that much about the other journals when I assign—the more opinions there are out there, the better-informed selectors will be. That being said, I hate like poison when someone else beats Kirkus to the first review.

Posted by: Carlie Webber

Part One: What is an ARC?

Lurk at a few book listservs or read some book blogs, and you begin to see one word over and over: ARC. Soon, you realize that people are reading books before the publication date by getting these things called "ARCs". What are they? And how come these people are getting them?

I asked several people to share their publishing wisdom about ARCs:  Brian Farrey, a Flux Acquisitions Editor; Andrew Karre, Editorial Director for Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group; Sheila Ruth, Publisher, Imaginator Press; and fantasy author Sarah Prineas.

What, exactly, is an ARC?

At its most simple, an ARC is an Advance Reading Copy. Or Advanced Reader Copy. And it's also called a galley. Yes, even amongst the experts there are variations on this answer!

Andrew Karre explains that an ARC "is a promotional piece and a sales tool." Brian Farrey adds, "it's primarily a marketing/publicity tool aimed at generating advance interest and excitement for a forthcoming title."

Brian Farrey clarifies that technically speaking, a galley is a version of the book that is made up to six to twelve months before the book's release while the ARC appears four to six months prior to release. Farrey notes that many people use the terms ARC and galley interchangeably. "[Galleys] are for hot, hot, hot books where the publisher wants to generate buzz," Farrey says. "They're meant to get people talking about the book itself, not necessarily to generate reviews (although that does happen too)." With the recent cutbacks in publishing, Farrey speculates that we will start seeing fewer galleys and more ARCs; and that they will be done digitally, via PDF.

Brian Farrey says that both galley and ARC are "typically printed on low quality paper and materials (they're not meant to last; they're meant to be read once and tossed)." Galleys often do not have any cover art, while ARCs usually do.

Sheila Ruth, Publisher, Imaginator Press, notes that technology has also impacted the production of ARCs. Full color covers are the "result of improvements in technology reducing the cost and improving the quality of digitally printed color."

It's more than just appearances and quality of paper. Andrew Karre explains that "the text can be at various stages of editorial development," observing that "ideally it's a close-to-final manuscript that's only lacking proofreading." Farrey points outs, "there will be typos and other errors." The ARC is not meant to be the final book, but rather "give a feel for the final book."

Fantasy author Sarah Prineas illustrates how the difference between an ARC can be more than a misspelled word: "the ARC quite often is an earlier iteration of the book, so might contain a lot of sentence level and continuity errors and infelicities of prose that will be caught in a later copy edit.  Another difference is that if a book has internal illustrations, these will often be either missing from the ARC or present only as rough sketches."

How do you tell the ARC from the finished book? As Karre says, "All ARCs have some variation on a banner that says "Not for Sale: Advance Uncorrected Proof."" If that's not evidence enough, "instead of reader-focused backcover and flap copy, it  … has details of release date and promotional plans as well as copy more akin to catalog copy, where the audience is librarians and buyers, rather than readers."

As explained above, at best the ARC is close to the final book. Farrey cautions, "sometimes there are significant changes between the ARC and the final copy (which is why reviewers are urged to check any quoted material against the final copy)."

Why use a "not final" copy of the book to promote the book?

Andrew Karre points out those things that cannot wait for the final copy of the book: ARCs help book designers fine-tune their designs and "authors and publishers send them out for blurbs. Sales people like to have them to show and perhaps leave with bookstore buyers. Foreign and subsidiary rights sales people use ARCs."

Sheila Ruth explains how originally, influential journals such as Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal/School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Foreword Magazine, would "only review a book if they receive it 3 or 4 months before publication date." Ruth continues, "Galleys/ARCs were used primarily for these prepublication reviewers and for other influential reviewers, like some of the major newspapers. In recent years, however, many publishers are printing larger numbers of ARCs and using them to generate wider prepublication buzz, distributing them widely at conferences and sending them out to bloggers in large numbers."

Andrew Karre points out another way that ARCs are used by publishers: "In [young adult literature], publishers also participate in [the Young Adult Library Services Association]'s excellent galley program, which puts ARCs into the hands of teens."

ARCs are not cheap; and publishers have to decide how many to create.

Sheila Ruth says it depends on the publisher: "In some cases, only a small number of ARCs are produced to send to the major journals and influences. In other cases, particularly for the "big push" books from the major publishers, hundreds can be produced."

Andrew Karre says, "the basic thing to know is that, the larger the print run, the cheaper any single book in that run will be to produce." Karre adds, "the ARC is probably going to cost more and maybe several times more."

Brian Farrey of Flux breaks down the price of the ARC (which, remember, is given out at no cost) to the final book: "we might print 30 ARCs of a book but 5,000 of an initial print run.  Those 30 galleys, because they're so few, will cost us around $5-7 per copy.  Because of volume discounts, the final print run might be between $1-2 a book." The publicity team at Flux "works to craft a very targeted list of media contacts who will receive ARCs."

If the number of people and groups who get ARCs seem long, remember the purpose. Andrew Karre is blunt: "Every ARC will earn its keep by creating a book sale or two (a librarian reads an ARC, digs it, talks about it to her teen reading group, buys copies of the real book for her collection, etc.) Let me repeat: ARCs must create sales of actual books."


Stay tuned for next week, when I delve deeper into the ARC versus The Final Book!

Posted by: Elizabeth Burns

Have you Googled your library recently? If you haven’t, what you find may surprise you. That man you saw earlier today picking up his holds may be thinking about writing a review that mentions how much he likes dropping by the library to grab his books and go. The fact is our patrons, both the satisfied and dissatisfied, are talking about us in their blogs on review sites like Yelp. These sites enable our customers to reach larger audiences than ever before, and to share what they like and dislike about the service provided. This is something libraries should be thinking about and preparing for.

Once you’re aware of these review sites the library has some questions to answer. Should the library join these sites and add reviews or other content? Should the library respond to negative reviews, correct inaccurate information, and so on? Who’ll be responsible for periodically checking these sites and what guidelines should they be working with.

I’d encourage libraries to consider adding content to review sites, especially in cases where the library hasn’t yet been reviewed. These first reviews represent an opportunity to share services the library offers such as Wi-Fi, and virtual reference service. Be up front about identifying yourself as the library and keep it brief. Be factual and focus on services, let your customers be the ones to offer praise.

Libraries should consider carefully how or if they’ll respond to reviews. My advice would be to let the community police itself and to have faith that the good service you provide will balance out the occasional poor review. Yelp offers some good advice for business owners that also applies to libraries.

Some highlights:
“Don’t review your own business anonymously or get your friends to do the same.
Don’t overestimate the impact of a single negative review. It happens to even the best businesses. That said if you see a trend of negative reviews, you may want to take this feedback and determine if there is a way to improve your business.
Do add photos to your business page and make sure the business information is correct.
Do review your own business, clearly stating that you are the business owner. Full disclosure is important here, and will be critical in earning the respect of the Yelp community.”

Review sites like these are expanding rapidly, building off people’s inherent desire to create and share information. Libraries that embrace these web 2.0 tools have an opportunity to open a dialog with their customers which may lead to beneficial relationships for both.

A customer, who wrote a positive review about the library, may be the person you think of when you’re looking for a person to offer a patron perspective on the library’s blog. And even a negative review offers the chance to get feedback about ways we might improve our services, practices, or policies. Our customers are talking about us. It’s time for libraries to join the conversation.

Posted by: Jim McCluskey

I’ve already addressed what a review looks and smells like in a previous post, but recently I’ve been coming across some ethical conundrums, hurt feelings and other assorted downers that ensnare new reviewers from time to time.

I wondered if maybe I hadn’t gotten too far ahead of myself: what if you’re just starting out and don’t know what to expect? You just signed up for a shiny new blog, you’re dutifully trying to post every day, you attract a few readers, wrangle a few free books.

And then what? I asked around, and in particular, I wanted to hear from experienced bloggers how they faced an empty screen, and what went into their reviewing process.

The people I e-mailed are from the organizing committee over at Cybils, or the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (http://blog.cybils.com) now underway. They all have solid credentials as bloggers, having been at this for at least a couple days.

Online reviewers’ unique issues

Their problems finding words to describe other people’s words certainly aren’t new, but there are some novel problems in our online instant-reaction land when the white-hot flames of irate fans are always a mere mouse-click away.

There’s also a profound difference in temperament and training. When print critics come under fire, they’re usually bolstered by editors with ice in their veins. Most bloggers only have their spouse’s shoulder to sob on.

And kidlit bloggers, who often come from the ranks of librarians and teachers, are by nature a helpful lot. They aim to please. Send them a few books and they’ll review them. Send them a ton of books and they’ll review those too. Overwhelm them with your entire frontlist, plus everybody else’s frontlist, and they’ll slog through the stack, panicking lest they overlook one.

This is not good for having a balanced life, or getting supper ready on time, or preserving what’s left of your eyesight (not to mention sanity).

Another huge problem seems to be staying original when many people have reviewed the same material, or when the publisher sends out press packets with concise, pithy summaries of the book already. Is that stuff fair game?

I asked what makes for good, basic reviewing habits:

“Keep the audience in mind”

Kelly Herold, Big A little a (http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/):

1. I always throw away publisher material. Always. I find it can cloud my judgment if it isn’t completely a waste of time, which it often is. I especially find publisher info on picture books annoying. Why do I want 2 pages of text on a book with fewer words? I don’t.

2. Keep the plot summary to one paragraph.

3. In my case, I like to keep my reviews to 3-5 paragraphs tops.

4. Always quote from the book if possible so readers can get an idea of the author’s style.

5. Keep audience in mind: who is the book for? age range?

6. Anne has taught me that if it is a picture book, you have to learn to think critically about the illustrations as well. This has not been easy for me, but I’m working on it.

Ending? Don’t mention it. No, really. Don’t.

Jackie Parker, Interactive Reader (http://interactivereader.blogspot.com/):

The only thing I look at on the publisher’s accompanying propaganda is the contact information for the publicist. Never know when that will come in handy...

I started to avoid reading jacket flaps or reviews past the first paragraph because I found they often gave way too much information away. My cardinal rule (I have many, but this one hasn’t been mentioned yet) is DON’T FREAKIN’ GIVE AWAY THE ENDING. I don’t know HOW many times I’ve heard people booktalk or whatever a book and give away way too much information. If you are going to have spoilers, say so. As a reader, I’m going to get really irritated if you don’t warn me. As a blogger librarian it’s just bad form. It seems like a no-brainer, but I still run into people who do it.

NEGATIVE REVIEWS: NOT THE ‘KISS OF DEATH.’

Sheila Ruth, Wands And Worlds (http://www.wandsandworlds.com/blog1/):

Just a comment about negative reviews from a publisher perspective. Most of the advice I’ve seen for publishers says that a negative review is still a good review (unless it totally trashes a book). It’s like the old saw that any publicity is good publicity. And a book on amazon with all five-star reviews is suspicious, whereas a book with a lot of reviews, some good, some bad, looks like a genuine thing. The martial arts book I published has mixed reviews from 2 to 5 stars (I’ve discovered that martial artists are very picky people) but it sells well anyway, and most of the sales come from Amazon. So a negative review on Amazon isn’t the kiss of death. I think *publishers* for the most part understand this, but many authors don’t. It’s naturally harder for them to be objective, because it’s their baby.

HAVE A WRITTEN REVIEW POLICY

Jen Robinson, Jen Robinson’s Book Page (http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/):

● Have a written review policy that you can refer to, in which you make clear whether or not you review everything that you receive, and that you don’t guarantee positive reviews. This helps to keep everyone’s expectations in line.

● If possible, notify the author and/or publisher when you do post a review, especially if it’s a mixed review. This increases your level of professionalism, and can help keep the author/publisher from feeling sand-bagged by running across a mixed review unexpectedly.

● If quoting from ARC or galley, make sure to specify that. This protects you and the publisher, should the final book differ from what you quoted. - Indicate the source from which you received the book, and be up-front about any particular ties that you might have with the author. I believe that being up-front about these sorts of things is the best guard against people who question one’s objectivity.

HAVE A BIT OF A THICK SKIN

Liz Burns, A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy (http://yzocaet.blogspot.com/):

● Have a bit of a thick skin; yes, easier said than done. But, if we say authors should have a thick skin, we, as writers, should have a thick skin also when someone disagrees with our reviews.

● You won’t convince the author that you’re right; chances are, the author won’t convince you that you’re wrong. (but, if you made a mistake ... That’s another thing entirely. If your review said, “what an odd action for an 12 year old orphan” and the author says, “interesting, except it’s an 10 year old and the parents are divorced,” own your mistake. Even if the change is now, “what an odd action for a 10 year old whose parents are divorced.”)

● Galleys and arcs do change before publication. If you don’t like something based on a galley or arc, you owe it to the author and to your readers to wait for the real book because it is very possible that what you didn’t like was fixed.

AVOID SNARK ATTACKS

Sarah Stevenson, Finding Wonderland (http://writingya.blogspot.com/):

Personally, I think that there’s never a bad time for diplomacy and tact in a review, positive or negative. I learned that very early on when I used to write a weird websites column and I made a snarky comment about a site I wrote up...and they wrote back to me saying they were sorry I thought their site could use improvement but they had a limited budget (it was a site at a university, for a robot arm you could move via the web) and that was all they could do given their means...and I felt soooo bad.

A FEW LAST WORDS

There’s always more advice to give on getting started in book blogging and reviewing. In fact, the most recent Kidlit Blog Carnival was about precisely that compiled by the witty Pam Coughlin at MotherReader (http://www.motherreader.com/2007/11/november-carnival-of-children.html).

There’s plenty there from around the blogosphere.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t add my own $.02 to the discussion. I second everything already said rely on your own voice and not the publisher’s, value diplomacy but be firm and would add a few things I learned the hard way:

Don’t blog your way to a stronger eyeglass prescription (I’ve upped mine three times since starting book buds). It’s very expensive to go blind.

You can ignore all other chores but supper. You family shouldn’t starve for food or your company, even if they must climb over piles of laundry to dine with you.

● If snark is important to you, develop a style that’s at least clever. Try metaphor, exaggeration, new turns of phrase--anything but plain bitchiness, which is so overdone as to be entirely predictable. If I can finish your mean, foul sentence for you, you’re boring me.

● Take advantage of automatic posting, if your blog host has that lifesaving feature. I write all my reviews on Saturdays and let the nice folks at TypePad do the rest. I then resume my regularly scheduled life.

● Get a life. Eat moderately and exercise often. Stop smoking. Be nice to small animals and old people. Say your prayers. Remember that you’re human and not an extension of your keyboard. Of course, I’m terrible about all of the above, so do as I say and not as I do ...

I’ve been thrilled at this opportunity to blog for ForeWord, and am sorry my month ended after the traditional four weeks. I was hoping we could stretch November out until, oh, Memorial Day at least.

I wish you all happy reviewing and/or blogging, and a very Happy Holidays.

Posted by: Anne Boles Levy

Try telling a roomful of ardent book lovers that they’re writing reviews all wrong. I’d never given a presentation – ever – yet I had to wean my favorite kidlit bloggers from thinking that reviewing is all about their opinions.

It isn’t. Nor is it necessarily even about individual authors or books.

No, it's about what former Los Angeles Times book review editor Steve Wasserman called "a cultural conversation of critical importance."

I took it to mean that no book exists in a vacuum. It’s part of a genre or it breaks from it; it’s typical of the author’s work or it’s a departure; it’s of the moment or reminiscent of another era. It has its hyper-specific niche or is part of a  movement. There’s always a larger something or other to say about it, and a reviewer’s job is to pin that something, as nebulous and slippery as a jellyfish, to the wall.

I decided to wallop the kidlitosphere with the particulars of this “cultural conversation” at a first-ever conference in early October. Librarians, booksellers, authors and the similarly obsessed emerged from their virtual worlds into the real one for one day in a conference room at a Radisson hotel in Chicago, the  tables arranged so we all faced one another, who’d been avoiding the light of day like those tube worms at the ocean’s bottom, pale and shy and blinking uncertainly. 

When my turn came, I scrambled beneath my table to the center well and faced the writers I admired enough to reprimand.

The review genre

Of course, all these people are ridiculously nice or they'd be blogging about politics or law or other grouchy topics. So I had nothing to fear, right? Except that I was there to tell them that the fun can't go on forever. That to write at a professional level means understanding that reviewing is a genre, with its own tropes and quirks and readers' implicit expectations.

Function follows form in reviewing, and I’ve adopted the mission of teaching those forms to whoever will sit still long enough. It's anathema even to nice bloggers, however, who are accustomed to the freewheeling, unedited, unexpurgated Express Yourself theme park that’s become the blogosphere. It’s tough to be told there are forms to follow, and they make sense, and the wheel doesn't need constant reinventing.

Plus, there was no getting around the fact that my 12-page handout did not fit neatly into the allotted 50 minutes, after I had prepared for a 90-minute workshop.

I raced through the material and there were many salient points that I had to skim or drop altogether. People were slow to get started, perhaps lulled by the easygoing nature of other presentations. Mine was high key, and I think many were startled at the size of the handout and the announcement that there would an editing exercise.

Where we are now

I began with an overview of the print vs. blog reviewers animosity. I stated flatly that print reviewers are gatekeepers, with an impulse to keep the barbarian hordes (that’s us) at bay out of self-preservation.

And one look around the book blogging world does indeed reveal a gap in skills, to put it gently. But the gates to the castle are easily opened; by knowing what a good, meaty book review looks like, you can join that cultural conversation Mr. Wasserman asserts in his excellent, if somewhat bitter personal essay on the subject of reviewing. 

Everything else, to me, is book chatter – also valuable, of course, but it doesn't employ the same analytical thinking or provide the same depth of insight.

Forms vs. Formulas

Before I could launch into the forms of book reviewing, I reminded people that forms aren't formulas. I used a shopping analogy (payback for all those overused sports analogies – I'm not much of a "team player" and I never "hit one out of the park"):

This isn't like going into a department store looking for size-12 sportswear and all you find are size-8 cocktail dresses. This isn't about one-size fits all.

Switching metaphors (you can do this when you're talking a mile a minute), I said imagine the structured review as a dinner plate. Just because everyone uses a dinner plate doesn't mean we're all eating the same meal. What you prepare and how you present it are entirely your own.

Having an Ideal Reader

I spent only a brief time asking bloggers to consider not just readers who routinely visit their blogs, since writing for this immediate circle eventually becomes limiting and self-referential.

You unwittingly erect your own gates, admitting only those who "get" you and your stylistic quirks. To reach a broader audience, you have to imagine who they should be.

I never imagined that Book Buds would draw so many librarians, and while I love every one of them, my ideal reader is still the lost parent in the bookstore, afraid to venture beyond what they loved from their own childhoods into the wilderness of all those new titles. I always write for that parent, imagining him or her anew each time.

The Three Forms of Book Reviewing

I taught that book reviewing – or really, any kind of reviewing – breaks down into three forms based on length: capsule reviews, mid-length or daily reviews (so called because they appear in the daily sections of newspapers instead of Sunday) and long-form essays topped by a billboard (explanation below).

We spent the most time on capsule reviews, because we find it most often on blogs and it offers the easiest opportunities for freelancing. It's also a pain to get it right, and therefore the most flagrantly abused.

My advice: write tight, eschew too much plot rehash, have a distinct perspective, be authoritative.

I had people edit a short, highly critical review of a Hanukkah book that had been sent to me by a writer looking for editing advice. I was surprised when many people (authors all) stalled on the idea that the writer would even bother with a negative review.

Many authors simply couldn't emotionally grapple with the reality of negative book reviews, of their being a vital part of that "cultural conversation."

Daily Reviews

We moved on to the dailies, which I insisted must have two characteristics: thematic consistency and brisk writing.

My advice:

Simply listing all your likes and dislikes doesn't make for a review, even if you think you're being thorough. Especially if you think you're being thorough!

Ruminate on the book as deeply as time allows. Where does it fit in its genre? Or into the author's body of work? Or in pop culture? If there's one notion in your head that shines brighter, there's your theme, which acts as a thread to pull readers through to the end.

Organize all your quotes, plot details and exposition around that ONE theme. That's all there's room to do in a daily. As with capsule reviews, keep plot rehash to a minimum. Weave in only those details that make sense for the theme you've chosen. If there are plot details that MUST be included that DON'T fit your theme, you may have the wrong theme.

The long form

The long-form essay deals not necessarily with one particular book -- unless it's a seminal work -- but with a writer's career, or a trend or movement in literature, or it paints some much larger picture than is possible in the 500-800 words usually reserved for dailies.

I didn't get to say this, but the long form can go very long -- up to 25,000 words or so, after which it's time to get a book contract!

To keep it manageable, the long form features what's known as a "billboard," basically a signal of what's to come. Its two characteristics are the anecdotal lead of 1 or 2 extremely large paragraphs or 3-6 shorter paragraphs, plus what's called the "nut" paragraphs because they contain the kernel of your arguments.

The opening anecdote -- often but not always drawn from the subject's life -- ends in an "aha" moment when the reader finally learns why he or she's reading this.

That's when biography stops and the hard work of laying out your themes begins. A longer piece needs more than one theme, and EVERY SENTENCE in the nut graphs lays out a different theme, each subsequent sentence building on the one before.

I used an excerpt from a recent piece on Jack Kerouac (his "On the Road" turns 60 soon) and quickly pointed out where we shifted into "nut" mode and labeled the anecdote as "A" followed by themes B, C, D and even E.

Throughout the piece -- indeed, every long piece -- writers will wheel through ABCDE (or however many letters) again and again. To put all the plot rehash or anecdotes or quotes (the "A" stuff) together would make little sense except as a book report; to put all paragraphs on theme B or theme C, etc., together gets wearisome. People like patterns and the mind absorbs them without effort.

If, each time you dip into the well for "A" matter, you then work it through each theme, you create a circular movement that propels readers along, always coming back to A again, and so forth. You build momentum.

(This is tough to explain without showing, but if you want to peek in at Book Forum, any Sunday book review section or the New York Review of Books, you'll find plenty of examples to dissect this way.)

Reactions

The reaction? Most people were gracious and approving. A few were shell-shocked at having to do actual thinking. But that’s exactly my point; jotting down newsy tidbits gleaned from press releases or rounding up links doesn’t require critical analysis. Dashing off comments isn’t a conversation. A thumbs-up, thumbs-down cursory reaction isn’t a review.

All those factoids and quips serve their purpose, but if we’re going to bury beleaguered book review sections, unwittingly or no, we ought not replace them solely with the printed version of a five-minute quickie. Just as a book still requires some luxuriating, even in our haste-addicted society, a sustained argument in a long essay is still a slow, deliberate seduction that engages the senses, lingers in the memory, and satisfies the spirit.

Posted by: Anne Boles Levy