I discovered very early on in my journalistic career that you don't make a living from reviewing. A fairly well-known sportswriter confided to me that the book and theatre reviews he wrote for one of our national papers were just a sideline and brought in peanuts. And it's been the same for me for the past 20 years with book and gig and album reviews. Great fun, but I won't be retiring on the proceeds.
For most reviewers, the perk is the book or the CD or a ticket to see the band. I suppose it depends how desperately you want to be in print if you're prepared to buy them yourself and review them. I've done it once years ago when I was trying to get a foot on the music-writing ladder. I wouldn't do it now.
All this is by way of musing over an email we had from a publisher during the week. They're a fairly small indie set-up and, like the rest of us, are feeling the pinch from the recession. So, instead of sending out review copies of books, they're proposing to send PDF files instead to the reviewers.
I can totally understand why they do this. Publishers must spend a small fortune in sending out review copies to countless publications, many of which will never review the book. I know that some, not surprisingly, want to trim their distribution lists.
The RTE big cheeses (well, me and Yvonne Klein) discussed the email from the publisher and in the end decided that we couldn't, in all conscience, expect reviewers to work from PDF files. A lot of people don't like reading on-screen (I have PDF versions of at least two of the Julia Spencer-Fleming books which I'm rather intrigued to read, but have never got past page 20 of the first one, because it's so damn eye-numbing reading from a computer screen). And it would cost the reviewer a chunk of change in paper and inks if they chose to print the PDF out. Seeing as they're reviewing for the love of it as it is, we can't ask them to do that. And, to be honest, selling the book at some stage is the only way a lot of reviewers make any dosh out of reviewing.
I think the indie publishers are in a tricky situation. But for many of them, the only reviews they're likely to get are on sites like RTE, simply because we review 40 books a month – your average newspaper, if they've still got a book review page, are likely to have space for four a month (and those are probably from the big publishers).
We've suggested to some publishers that they don't send us books on-spec any more, but instead email with new releases and we will attempt to match up the book with a reviewer. This isn't a flawless plan, as many publicists will be too busy to email editors individually. And it loses that element of lucky chance, where an unusual book arrives in the post and catches an editor's eye.
But until reviewing ebooks becomes the norm, rather than the exception (and I can't see that happening terribly quickly, particularly in the UK – there's still no sign of the Kindle appearing here, and I bet Waterstone's staff haven't been mown down in the rush for the Sony reader), I think publishers just have to budget for review copies and keep their fingers crossed that they get a reasonable hit rate for their money.
