Speculation, Fact and Fiction

The webzine Emerald City has just announced it’s folding. So I have no one to write reviews for and I am more than a little fed up about it. Not least because this is the second time this has happened to me. The Alien Online stopped running reviews last year, though it has continued as a news site.

There are unwelcome similarities about both events, to the interested observer. Which is what I am. Which is all I am. I want to make it crystal clear from the outset that I’m not writing with any inside information from either editor. Both Cheryl and Ariel have adopted a firm ‘no comment beyond what I’ve posted publicly’ attitude, sticking rigorously to it.

But both have posted about the way that a hobby turned into an increasing obligation, demanding a professional approach with all the time-consuming consequences, when they both have to earn a living, and have, you know, a life, with a partner, and relaxation and stuff like that.

Because publishers love these hobby sites. They say, quite rightly, that word-of-mouth recommendation is the best publicity, and the Net is a fabulous vehicle for spreading enthusiasm. All absolutely true. But one person can only do so much. I’ve another pal, not anyone in SF&F circles, who started reviewing books on his own blog for his pals’ amusement. He was hugely flattered to be approached by publishers offering review copies.

Then he found himself with far more books than he could actually read… Then he got the genial email from a publicist looking for a firm commitment on the date when he’d be posting a particular review. Then there was the ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ email from an editor discussing his opinion on one book. Then there was the outraged email from an overly-opinionated fan who decided him saying ‘this particular book just doesn’t work for me,’ was in fact saying ‘this book and everything written by the author past and present is crap because I say so.’

Then there was the vile email from some outraged writer attacking everything from his integrity to his ancestry. It’s a shame that writer wasn’t given the very good advice I was, when I was first published. Never respond to a bad review. It’s like starting an arse-kicking contest with a porcupine. Even if you win, the cost to yourself will not be worth it.

Anyway, my pal abandoned his bookblog. Simple as that. Because as he said, ‘I’m not being paid to take this shit. Free books aren’t worth that much to me!’.

Ah yes, money. The Internet, where Information is Free! Up to a point. But hosting and bandwidth aren’t free, not in my universe. Nor is posting books on to reviewers, for sites with a staff of (unpaid) collaborators. But when a site starts taking advertising to cover costs, or links to Amazon, there’s always someone who’ll start muttering firstly, that the reviews can’t be trusted. Because if the site’s got a banner for MegaCorp Books, any MegaCorp author is only going to get wholly undeserved, ecstatic reviews.

Which, incidentally, leaves the best-intentioned MegaCorp publicist damned if she supports the site with some of the limited funds at her disposal, and damned as a parasite is she doesn’t. Great.

Then the muttering starts about the loadsamoney the editor is squirreling away for personal enrichment. From Amazon referrals? Hardly. Then there are the attacks which are actually someone trying to settle a personal score that has nothing to do with the site, or reviews or anything even vaguely relevant.

Let me repeat, I’m not working from any kind of inside information here. I’m generalising and extrapolating. Because I’ve been accused, not to my face, naturally, of writing dishonest reviews for books written by my friends or by other authors published by the same imprint as me. I don’t bother pointing out to these hard-of-understanding folk that I tend to like the books written by my friends, because we’re friends because we like the same kind of things…

Or explaining that the convention among sensible authors is that if a pal writes something you really don’t like, you discreetly tell the publicist that unfortunately you find yourself far too busy to review it. This isn’t a giveaway, because quite often you are just too busy for books you’d really like to read! Which is another reason why I’m not about to waste my limited time writing about a book I just don’t like when I could be recommending something better instead.

Of course, this kind of muttering is hardly confined to webzines and book blogs. I’ve come across similar episodes in martial arts circles and the pre-school playgroup committee and all manner of things in between, up to and including Cub Scouts!

Husband and I were once accused of sneaky profiteering from the LARP club we ran for fifty people in the wilds of Oxfordshire. Not to our faces, you understand. Possibly because Husband has several grades of black belt in aikido and used to play rugger in the second row of the scrum. This was a whispering campaign started by two members who had failed with a committee coup attempt when they wanted to run things themselves. No one else thought they could run a whelk stall. So we offered them the books for auditing - at which point, we added, we would be invoicing the club for all the endless unpaid hours of our time we had spent organizing things, at professional rates... We didn’t hear anything more from them.

So, from whatever combination or corollaries of these factors, another webzine folds. Which leaves me, as a fan, looking for another reliable, well-informed source of news and reviews. Which can take some time, always in short supply around here.

And as an author, I’ve lost another string to my personal publicity bow. I said I was an interested observer. Here’s my principal professional interest and I think it’s a legitimate one. Writing reviews for webzines with a lot of traffic is a good way for me to keep my name above the parapet. This matters when that all important word-of-mouth is increasingly led by the Net. The shelves for genre authors are being squeezed in every bookshop to make way for the multivolume discounts, and genre magazines give over an ever-increasing share of their limited pages to DVD and TV coverage rather than books.

This kind of profile raising isn’t just about waving madly to snag attention. As with doing an interview, writing a review gives people an insight into how I think and what I like. Which should give someone contemplating reading one of my own books some clue as to whether or not we’re operating on the same wavelength. Which only works if I’m writing an honest review, mind you.

If that reader thinks we’re of like mind, and goes on to enjoy my books, excellent! Equally valuably, if they read my review and think, ‘this woman’s a loon’, they’re hardly going to read my book, and then tell all their friends, and whoever reads their blog, how much they hated it. I can do without that kind of word of mouth.

But that’s not nearly the only reason I like to write reviews. It’s very good discipline for me as a writer. Thinking analytically about how someone else has written a story keeps me properly critical when I look at what I’m writing myself. It keeps me current with the state of the market. It gives me the chance to read things I might never otherwise pick up, helping me avoid tunnel vision.

But most of all, I like to share my enthusiasm when I’ve read something and really enjoyed it. I was a reader long before I even contemplated being a writer. Readers recommend books to their pals. It’s what we do.

So I’m still fed up. And wondering if I have the energy to go looking for another website who’d like me to write reviews for them. How long before that editor decides the bouquets are just not worth the brickbats?