I’m Associate Editor of The internet Review of Books, a fairly new entry on the review scene created by editor Carter Jefferson to fill just such gaps as you and Skidelsky cite: the shrinking space given to reviews in newspapers.

However– and here’s where I lean away from Skidelsky’s views– we publish monthly allowing time for reading and considered thought before writing a review. Nothing is dashed off cavalierly, and shot out into cyberspace. Neither do we aim to bless a book. We allow each reviewer to respond as he or she sees fit, while still maintaining a respectful voice.

We write for the potential readers of the books we choose to review, not the author or the publishing company, and we try to choose books that may not get to see the light of day in any other review venue.

Still, practicality requires that we can’t be so obscure in our choices, that there are no readers who are interested enough to visit our site.

Bottom line, a newspaper makes reviewing decisions for financial reasons. Internet reviewers don’t have that albatross, so whose reviews just might be the most honest? Hmmmm . . . your point exactly, Kassia?

We’d love to have you visit The Internet Review of Books, and our associated blog.

– This is so bloody typical of these “types” in the paper press. Snobs, that is what they are.
Unless a book comes from one of the major publishers they throw it into the garbage – they are so stuck up they are absolutely sure it must be lowbrow trash without even bothering to look inside.

Well, this small press has learnt its lesson. Never again will I bother to go the “traditional” route of producing an ARC and submitting 60 advance copies to the paper press. Hell will freeze over first.
I have decided to submit review copies only to the specialists (that means publications dedicated to the genre of the book) and to bloggers, whom I find to be generous warmhearted folk with the ability to tell a good back from a bad book without reference to the amount of money in the publisher’s bank account.
So, New York Times and the rest of the snob press, you can sod off. Thanks Bloggers!

The thing is, this is how Canongate got to know about me, they are one of my friends on Goodreads. The company has made a conscious effort to take full advantage of on-line ‘amateur’ reviewers to promote their wares. When they set up their account, one of the things they asked was who in the UK would be interested in getting books for free. And all they were looking for was a review on the Goodreads site. My blog entry was a bonus for them but, hey, I like free books. I think it is a very sensible and commendable move on their part. A L Kennedy got all the press for her win but what about poor ol’ Mark McNay?

One of the issues that’s being battered about at the moment is concerning the blogosphere’s tendency towards positive reviews. What would I have done if I didn’t like that book? The answer is I would have done a much shorter review but on the Goodreads site only. It’s not that I’m afraid to say bad things about a book because I’m not but my site is not primarily a book review site, if my readers see me doing a review at all then that alone is a recommendation; the review that follows is substantiation of that.

Also would love to know how these two groups line up demographically. Are print-only people primarily older, meaning they truly are a dying breed?

Go get ‘em Kassia!

Two points:
First of all, I read blogs about publishing FAR more than I read print media about publishing. Blogs are more “in the moment” in that they cover the issues in a more timely manner rather than making me wait to the end of the week to read about it in the paper. Case in point: ferrets and plagarism. This was being discussed in the blogosphere for nearly two weeks before print media picked it up.

Blogs also allow me the opportunity to talk back to the author of the article. With the comments section, an entire discussion can take place about the issue at hand. That cannot happen in traditional print media (btw, I had decided there were two types of people in the world: those who wrote blog articles and those who commented on them. I need to amend that with a third type of person: those who don’t have any understanding of what a blog is).

One last thing:
There is a downside to Internet blogging: I cannot use a blog post to train a puppy…

Diana (hoping this post goes through and apologizing if the other actually did and I’ve done this twice)