by Gabriel Valjan, first published on Criminal Minds blog, reprinted with permission.
Question: I found out Publishers Weekly let go of some its reviewers and is reviewing fewer mysteries. PW is one of the top reviewers. Which reviewers will take their place? Kirkus? Booklist? Library Journal? Or maybe some of the private reviewers. Do reviews matter to you? Do you think they influence readers? Who do you count on for reviews and why?
Answer: Reviews matter, and then they don’t.
The question is whether the reason you’re reading reviews is personal or business.
As writers we all crave some form of validation that our efforts are not for naught. We hope a reader enjoyed the world we created between the two covers. Such a reviewer is likely your everyday reader who came to the work because they like the genre. How they found me is the real question to me. Their reviews could be in-depth because they are fans of the genre or superficial because they are on to the next shiny thing, or they don’t feel confident writing reviews—a very common complaint.
Industry reviewers are subject-matter experts, and their opinions carry weight (theoretically). These are the critics publishers and agents stop and listen to, as if E.F. Hutton said something in a crowded restaurant.
Now that I dated myself with an allusion to the E.F. Hutton commercials in the seventies and eighties, I need to speak now to my own experiences as a reader and then as a writer. Once upon a time, before the internet, when people read physical newspapers (gasp), I grabbed the Sunday editions of The Boston Globe or the book section of The New York Times. It became a ritual, along with a nice toasted cinnamon raisin bagel slathered with butter. Back in those halcyon days (or daze) when I knew nothing about cholesterol, I munched and crunched my way through what the critics said about this or that author. When it came to reviews of genre fiction, I read for the gist of the plot and determined whether (or not) I’d go down to the local bookstore and read the first chapter. In a word, I read but didn’t give credence to what was said about the quality of the work. Who made this person judge, jury, and executioner? I decided for myself. Where I did defer to the “experts” was with technical books on matters academic, because I lacked the formal exposure to the topic.
As a writer reviews tell me more about trends, and give me insight to what publishers think is “hot and happening.” Writers face a dilemma: write to market, write what they want, or figure out some kind of compromise for the sake of their creativity and integrity. Writing to market is what you saw satirized in the movie American Fiction.
If you do the research, you will discern fads in publishing from topics, themes, and authors producing it. I’ve always harbored the suspicion that these trends were fermented in the basements of publishing houses because honestly, what reigned supreme since the printing press went viral has been Jerry Maguire’s mantra, “SHOW ME THE MONEY.” Do the research. If it’s crap but sells, then it will stay on the shelf and humped until it’s bowlegged. When it doesn’t sell, it’s time to move on. I’ve seen it happen more times than I care to admit.
Where does this leave us with reviews, especially in the trades publishers buy ad space in? Let’s gather the usual suspects.
I don’t think PW affects readers at all. In my opinion PW influences bookstores and libraries. Librarians do help us find the books we enjoy.
Kirkus seems to have two doors: one that reviews, and one that sells reviews.
Fast forward to my own experience.
The mechanism for discovering authors has changed and it hasn’t. What changed is the existence of Amazon and Goodreads, though I think both are becoming homogeneous, in part because Amazon now owns Goodreads. If a Rupert Murdoch controls all the news, what do you expect to see and hear? If there are Big Five publishers and they have more imprints than a white-collar criminal has shell companies, then what you have is a game of knowing and not knowing who the publisher is. There is no transparency, and that also applies to blurbs, a sophisticated combination of stub-review and celebrity endorsement. You wonder how this writer managed to score words of praise from an established writer. To follow the money trail of most publishers would require a crack team of forensic accountants, though readers don’t care because all they want is a good story. They want their fix, and they don’t care how they get it.
Authors care, however, because there is this alleged urban legend that once you hit a certain number of reviews and stars on Amazon, then the god in the Bezos machinery promotes you in ways a monster budget couldn’t. Is this a form of consumer democracy or another way of playing the lottery? If 100,000 reviewers say X is the Next Great Thing, is it? What happens to authors if the megalodon that is Amazon were to be made into sushi as a result of the Sherman Act? And what does that Amazonian algorithm of promotion from reviews say about the critics in the trades? I can point to books that have thousands of reviews that were never on The New York Times Bestseller List. Likewise I can point to books that the critics reviewed and fawned over that I’ve read and scratched my head, only to say, “WTF am I missing here because I don’t see it.”
I haven’t even touched on the explosion of reviewers, such as Facebook groups and social influencers who are bookstagrammers, which sounds to me like book stabbers. Then there are booktokers, where performance art takes precedence over the review. Influencers make money having subscribers, likes, etc., and it plays as if it were an absurd game of “The Emperor with No Clothes,” but nobody says that.
I find new books the old way: recommendations from friends who know what I like.
It’s nice to read somewhere that someone enjoyed your work. I find it especially interesting if readers tell me who is their favorite character in my Shane Cleary mystery series and why. I’m often surprised, because they find something in the character I never saw. As for reviews correlated to commercial success, I’ve not seen any proof of it.
Gabriel Valjan writes historical crime fiction. He is the recipient of the Macavity Award for Best Short Story, and he has been listed for the Bridport and Fish Prizes, the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Silver Falchion Awards. He lives in Boston’s South End and answers to a tuxedo cat named Munchkin.
