One of the best ways to promote your book is through book reviews. But as demonstrated the recent rash of newspaper book review cutbacks, book reviews are a fading practice. Or are they?
In an editorial for the L.A. Times, author Michael Connelly writes about some of the slashing at newspapers:
Recently, for instance, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that the position of book editor would be eliminated in a cost-cutting move. Without a specific editor directing book coverage, the paper will rely more heavily on reviews from wire services.
...The Chicago Tribune announced last week that it was moving its books section from Sunday to the less-read Saturday paper — an edition that becomes almost obsolete by noon, when the early Sunday edition hits the stands. At the Raleigh News & Observer, the book editor's position was recently cut. At the Dallas Morning News, the book critic quit rather than face significant space reductions. Books coverage has also been cut at the Orlando Sentinel, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and other papers.
Mr. Connelly is concerned that, although these cuts have short-term financial benefits, the long-term consequences are not so hot.
In the past, newspaper executives understood the symbiotic relationship between their product and books. People who read books also read newspapers. From that basic tenet came a philosophy: If you foster books, you foster reading. If you foster reading, you foster newspapers. That loss-leader ends up helping you build and keep your base.
As the argument goes, people aren't reading, so they're not buying newspapers, and newspapers can't afford to publish book reviews for readers who aren't reading. That will lead to a continued decline in readers, who will read even fewer newspapers.
I don't buy it. The argument or newspapers. I think newspapers are dead--at least the kind you hold in your ink-stained hands. With a growing distrust of the media, and the availability of news from the Internet within minutes of an event taking place, the printed newspaper business is headed toward novelty status. I know plenty of us still love to sit down with the Sunday paper and spend the afternoon reading it from beginning to end, but eventually, we're going to die off, and the people taking our place will go no farther than the computer for their information.
And, the reality is, far more book reviews are available today then even five years ago. They just come from different sources.
Blogger Alex Massie notes that the demise of the book review is greatly exaggerated:
The truth is that there's more book reviewing available to the average reader now than at any point in decades. Arts & Letters Daily links directly to the books pages of no fewer than 37 publications from across the English-speaking world and this doesn't even include the books pages of publications such as The New Republic. In other words, the reader in Atlanta or Cheyenne or Kansas City now has greater access to the literary world - with all its diversity and disputes - than his or her parents' generation could ever have hoped for.
Nor is this the only heartening sign. The remarkable success of book clubs, to say nothing of the proliferation of entertaining literary sites online, as well as the ever-increasing number of literary festivals crammed into the calendar each year all combine to suggest that rumours of the book's death continue to be exaggerated.
It's still a good idea to seek reviews of our books. We'll just need to seek reviews from a diversified list of providers.
You can check out Connelly's and Massie's full articles here and here.
