Interview with Judi Clark of MostlyFiction.com - Page 9

No matter the intention, every book review is publicity. I don’t care what my reasons were for starting MostlyFiction.com, this site quickly became part of the PR cycle. It’s the nature of the beast. If all newspapers were to decide to drop book reviewing from their budgets, then some of the existing, or maybe some new websites, will rise up and fill the gap to filter and promote. The publishers need book reviews. Some sites are already more “legitimate” then others. These sites will probably have an even larger offering of advance review copies. Maybe we will recognize the new “legitimate” by the number of books they review at laydown date, as long as the reviews offer quality writing. It is hard for me to imagine that hasty quick Amazon.com blurb reviews will do the trick. Maybe, the sites that become “ new legitimate” will initially emulate the print world (or derive from the print world since most major newspapers print their books reviews online so why wouldn’t they continue doing this?). But with 175,000 new books published every year it is hard to imagine that this structure could last long. Moreover, as e-readers become more common and publishers will be able to push out review copies for less money, maybe the whole model will break apart.

If this happens, I just want it known that I will accept any unemployed book reviewers as volunteers at MostlyFiction.com….

Do you keep the author’s feelings in mind when you review?

I think about the fact that someone put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and has written a complete book. Thus, they deserve respect because this is not something that I will ever accomplish. I prefer that our reviewers be the good reader and give the book a chance. However, if the book is just not enjoyable, then leave it be. Hopefully someone else will find more pleasure in the book and they can write a fair review.

Have you received aggressive responses from authors or publishers because of a negative review? If yes, how do you handle it?

Yes, back in 2003. One of our reviewers followed my guidelines and said what she liked about a certain book and what she did not like about it. In her opinion the author had done a “writerly trick” at the end of the book and just ruined it for her. Up to that point, she enjoyed it quite a bit, but she could not recommend the book because of this flaw. The book was published by a small independent and they needed our review to generate some publicity. Naturally, they were appalled when they saw what was posted. I had not read the book myself and felt bit helpless as I considered what to do — stick up for my reviewer or persuade her to soften her review. When I looked around at other reviews, we seemed to be the only site to pick up on this flaw. But then, there were only a few reviews and those sites were smaller than ours with more fluffy reviews. I had more discussion with the reviewer to just to make sure she wasn’t being a sloppy reader. Despite thinking she was probably right in her assessment, I still decided to pull the review and post just the excerpt instead. Without reading the book myself, I didn’t think I should keep the review posted. And since the book didn’t interest me enough to read it, I figured taking the review down was the moral answer to the dilemma.

Article Author: Mayra Calvani

Mayra Calvani is the National Latino Books Examiner for Examiner.com.

Visit Mayra Calvani's author page — Mayra Calvani's Blog