Reviewers

Interesting comments on reviewing and what makes a "professional" -- if, indeed, there is such a thing. Serendipity: I was talking yesterday with one of the editorial staff at the Reader about people's perceptions of various media. The print media as a whole are in desperate trouble as costs go up and revenues go down but still have the cachet of some sort of "substance," while online media are still considered in some circles to be not quite "legitimate." In the case of rewiewing (and I resolutely refuse to call myself a "critic" -- I'm not, never have been, and never will be), as it happens, online sources are far outstripping print media in particular in terms of quantity, quality, and relevance. (See this little rant at Chasing Ray for some intelligent commentary on the state of books in this country. She even makes some recommendations, which is not something you're going to find on the book review pages of any paper.)

I happen to be very enthusiastic about new things, as long as I'm convinced they're not completely pernicious. Sort of like a cat with a new toy: it has to be investigated thoroughly -- you know, sniff it for a while, poke it a couple of times to see what it does -- but once I've decided it's OK, I'm in. That explains at least partly why I spend mumbledy-mumble hours a day online: information. There is lots of it there, it's easy to get at, and it's free, mostly. (It does, however, require some analysis -- a lot of that information is more or less bogus.)

As for the online-versus-print review thing, look at it this way, which reflects a comment I made to my colleague yesterday: I've been told my stuff is "too serious" for a local paper which shall remain nameless. And, let it be said, their purview is local; that's all they're interested in. I, however, have an international audience for my reviews (heaviest in English-speaking countries, obviously, since that's the language I write in), and probably have a potential traffic of half a million readers per month from the various sites I write for. (That's sort of a wash -- people aren't going to read a review, no matter the medium, of a book they're not interested in to begin with, but how many papers can boast a circulaton of half a million?) I get responses -- from the U.S., from Canada, from the UK, from Germany, from Australia. Some are filled with praise, some are filled with damnation, but that's the life of a reviewer. I even get e-mails asking if I'm interested in reviewing such-and-such a book. Could I expect this from a local print weekly? I doubt it very much. More important, do I want to place myself in a context where the reviews are seen more and more as frivolous and shallow? No. I do write fairly substantial reviews. I don't see any reason to give my readers less, although I'm actually thinking of experimenting a little bit for venues that are less oriented toward serious commentary and more interested in consumer reaction (Green Man Review versus Epinions, for example). I pride myself on my flexibility as a writer -- about time I demonstrated it. Again.