To pay or not to pay?

Spotted this article from Jane Friedman this morning and intend to study it closely since I have been wondering about how to increase the number of my reiews - particularly for my latest Viking Summer, which currently has none. I  have looked at Brag Medallions and such like and was shocked - shocked, I tell you - to discover that you paid  to send your work in for a "possible review/award." It has always been the way of the big book prize competitions to charge an entry fee, but I  assumed that the money funded the cash prize that went to the winner. Anyway, I have steered clear of both! 

Jane Friedman says:

Paying for professional book reviews remains a controversial topic that very few authors have practical, unbiased information about. In fact, it’s not even well-known in the author community that paid book reviews exist, and even less is known about the value of such reviews.

Before I discuss the pros and cons of paid reviews, I want to define them (strictly for the purposes of this post).

§  Trade book reviews. Trade publications are those read by booksellers, librarians, and others who work inside the industry (as opposed to readers/consumers). Such publications primarily provide pre-publication reviews of traditionally published books, whether from small or large presses. Typically, these publications have been operating for a long time and have a history of serving publishing professionals. However, with the rise of self-publishing, some trade review outlets have begun paid review programs especially for self-published authors. Examples: Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews.

§  Non-trade book reviews. Because of the increased demand for professional reviews of self-published work, you can now find online publications that specialize in providing such services. These publications or websites may have some reach and visibility to the trade, or they may be reader-facing, or a mix of both. Examples: Indie Reader, Blue Ink Review, Self-Publishing Review.

§  Reader (non-professional) reviews. It’s considered unethical to pay for reader reviews posted at Amazon or other sites, and Amazon is actively trying to curb the practice.

This post is focused on the first two types of paid reviews; I recommend you stay away from the third.

Some of you reading this post may be looking for a quick and easy answer to the question of whether you should invest in a paid book review. Here’s what I think in a nutshell, although a lot of people will be unhappy with me saying so:

The majority of authors will not sufficiently benefit from paid book reviews, and should invest their time and money elsewhere.

She has a lot more to say, and a lot of information on the website for those who wish to discover it. I have bookmarked the site and I have no doubt I will learn a lot from it! Find it here:
https://www.janefriedman.com/paid-book-reviews/

Publishing in 2012

There are around 530,000 different books released per year in the UK and America. That’s a staggering figure and proably contributes as much as anything else to the fact that success is getting more and more difficult to define. One marker of success is winning an award, yet I read over the holidays that the Pulitzer committee of 2012 failed to agree upon a single work of fiction that deserved their prize - a first in the 35 year history of America's most prestigious literary award.

Could this reflect a lack of quality American fiction? The literary elite rejected this idea. 1992 Pulitzer fiction winner Jane Smiley declared she could not believe there wasn't a worthy title and suggested it was more a case of a committee that couldn’t agree. In the UK, the 2012 Booker judges said the UK’s premier literary prize remained resolutely committed to rewarding critical merit over accessibility. In 2011 they claimed 'readability' - much to the horror of the literary establishment – was the most important factor.

The Booker judges chose Hilary Mantel's novel Bring Up The Bodies. It is the second in a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, which also won Mantel Author of the Year at the National Book Awards. Since debut author Madeline Miller won The Orange Prize for Fiction with a story about a prince in Ancient Greece, historical novelists might be forgiven for thinking that historical novels are back in fashion; or that the literary establishment has at last realized their worth.

Female writers generally did well in 2012. E L James's 50 Shades Of Grey won Book of the Year at the National Book Awards, and Clare Balding won Biography/Autobiography of the Year, with Miranda Hart (Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year) and Rachel Joyce winning the New Writer of the Year award.

Inevitably the rise of eBooks and the decline of print have the publishing industry contemplating its navel once more over the question of popularity of certain titles and if popularity alone should now be a mark of literary merit. The literary elite may have to accept that the internet is changing the old standards and book awards must move and change with it, otherwise they will be meaningless.