Editorial: Reviews for Sale

Kirkus's recent announcement that it has launched two new review services, both for a fee, drew the ire of book critics—and many librarians—around the country. The cash-challenged publication, with a circulation under 3000, will now offer publishers the ability to "self-select" titles for review, old or new, "conventionally published, self-published, e-published and Print-On-Demand," for $350 each. The reviews, while not appearing in the print publication or database, will be posted as Kirkus Discoveries on Kirkus's web site and may be used by publishers in any "marketing materials and anywhere else you'd like to reprint [them]," according to Kirkus.

For publishers of lifestyle books (cookbooks, personal finance, home improvement, health, and parenting), $95 can buy inclusion in Kirkus Reports, an email newsletter, or "media tipsheet," as Kirkus calls it, that recommends titles to editors and magazine and newspaper journalists. Kirkus calls this "a co-op marketing partnership between Kirkus and publishers."

Why not just call it advertising? That's traditionally what publishers do with the positive quotes they pull from reviews in trade journals like Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. They use the quotes in ads and promotion in newspapers and magazines (and not necessarily the ones that ran the original review), on the books themselves, in letters to media contacts, even on buses and subways. And, of course, publishers pay for those ads. There is no guarantee, however, that a book will get a good review in any of these publications, ad or no ad.

In fact, Kirkus, established in 1933 as Virginia Kirkus' Bookshop Service to help booksellers buy stock that would sell, has a reputation for blunt, often acid, language and flip judgments that have led many librarians to eschew its reviews. Given that reputation, it's hard to believe that Kirkus's new fee-commissioned "reviews" won't adopt a milder tone. What publisher would pay to have its books eviscerated? Actually, publishers needn't worry: the for-fee model allows them to decide whether a review, once written, will appear at Kirkus Discoveries.

The new platform also eliminates one of the integral aspects of book review operations: selection. At LJ, editors spend nearly as much time deciding whether a book is worth considering and who should review it as they do on editing the final review. They base their decision on myriad factors, including suitability for library collections, timeliness and/or uniqueness of the topic, the author's approach and writing style, his or her track record, and much more. In a perfect world, any book that warranted a review would get it. Obviously, no single publication can review the 150,000-plus books that come out annually. The point is that not all of those books need or merit a review, and the decision about what to review shouldn't rest with publishers, who are obviously self-interested.

Not only do LJ reviews bear the stamp of its editors, they are written—and signed—by librarians and subject specialists who have an understanding of what librarians need. Can we really expect that reviewers writing for Kirkus Discoveries won't feel some onus to give publishers what they paid for?

Many publications like Kirkus and LJ started reviewing with revenue in mind. In fact, at LJ, "The New Book Survey" (the Book Review's first name) was the brainchild of the advertising director, Les Cooley, who later married the editor of the section, Margaret Eliason. Whatever ideas he might have had to attract ads, however, were quashed by Eliason, who developed LJ's signature short review format and instituted rigid rules governing the relationship between editorial and advertising—rules we still follow today.

Paying for a review takes it out of the realm of critical enterprise and puts it in the arena of paid publicity or advertising. It's no less, or more, than "reviews for sale."

fialkoff@reedbusiness.com