Back in the dark ages, when we communicated with smoke signals and steam-powered fax-machines, when I sold my first book to Baen (1999) someone at the publisher’s office collected all the reviews – cut out with scissors, and posted them to the author.
Yes, really. I have a bunch from the first few novels sitting in a folder somewhere. Within a few years it stopped, and, although I was selling far more copies than that first book, I never had another envelope full of cut-out treasures. They were treasures: living in the middle of nowhere, with fairly little contact with the wider world outside of Baen’s Bar, I really didn’t have much feedback of any kind, from anyone. I didn’t generate much publicity (not because I didn’t want to, or try: I just lived in Africa. On dial-up.).
I was never sure how much of this was from Baen withdrawing from it, or the wokerati boycotting Baen, or just the changing times. All three, maybe? Or maybe just me. Anyway: it was a small, cheap gesture that meant a lot to me. Of course, I had no way of sharing them with the wider world, so, in promotion terms, the publisher – and the reviewer, got very little out of me seeing those.
The reviewing business obviously went through some hard times, with media losing a lot of market share to the internet –which started having review sites, and of course the media moving onto it. There is still a lot of political activism there, meaning only the chosen dahlings get a look-in, unless you sell truly vast numbers — comes back to ‘If you don’t need publicity, they’ll fall over themselves giving it to you. If you really do need it, you’ll have to do it yourself or do without.”
Slowly that architecture too is changing: New sites, new people.
I will grant Raconteur this: they have tried. It’s not easy, but this was an e-mail this morning – which I am taking the liberty of sharing with you.
What follows are the reviews, interviews, media mentions, etc. related to your Raconteur Press books that I am aware of. I am providing this for you:
(a) in the hopes that you will find it informative and perhaps useful, and
(b) so you can let me know if I missed something that we should be tracking 🙂
- Ricochet – Mark Lardas – Adventure on a Frontier Planet
- Scanalyst – Mark Lardas – This Week’s Book Review – Storm-Dragon
- Epoch Times – Mark Lardas – Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for May 9–15
- The Worldshapers – Episode 193: Dave Freer – Storm-Dragon
- Forks and Hope – Early July book reviews
- Caroline Furlong – Review: Storm-Dragon by Dave Freer
- Libertarian Futurist Society – The Special Prometheus Award for YA fiction isn’t well-known yet, but that could change with the nomination of Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon
- Libertarian Futurist Society – Last call for Prometheus Best Novel nominations
- Libertarian Futurist Society – Liberty, literacy and younger generations: Why Prometheus Best Novel winner Dave Freer wrote Storm-Dragon
- Libertarian Futurist Society – New generation of writers dominates this year’s 14 Prometheus nominations for Best Novel
- Locus – 2026 Prometheus Novel Award Finalists
- Michael Grossberg – Review: Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon offers Heinleinesque Young Adult tale of discovery, self-reliance and courage against abuses of power
- Upstream Reviews – Review: Storm-Dragon by On a storm-tossed world, an unlikely friendship may bring salvation – or damnation!
That’s a pretty good haul, really. I did know about quite a lot of them… but there were a few I didn’t. Which brings me to my point. If you’re writing reviews – times have changed. Telling the publisher and the author improves YOUR reach, because both of them will have their circle – which you don’t share. You improve your reach… for free, with minimal effort, for work you were doing anyway. Likewise, as a publisher, you’re getting a large slice (generally larger than the author) of every sale. If you give the author ammunition to increase those sales… who is benefitting? Once again, minimal effort for a return.
And if you’re an author and don’t share these as soon as they come out, with your social media network… well, you’re an idiot, or you have too many sales already. Pick one.
The biggest problem any author has is not the writing. It’s being invisble.
Mad Genius Club 
18 responses to “Review…”
I’m glad you are getting reviews again/still and hopefully the fresh blood will chum the waters for your backlist! Wait….probably not a good analogy for a diver/island guy.
Congrats!
I’m trying to remember the last time a publisher sent me a copy of a review of one of my books. I think it was in the oughts – maybe 2005. After that, nada.
I make it a policy to send authors copies of the reviews I write. If I have contact information. Authors can also seek out reviews of their books by searching “[Author Name] {Title] review.” Or just “[Author Name] review.” Works badly for me because I write so many reviews and have to filter them out, but for normal writers (yes, I know that may be an oxymoron) it should work fairly well.
I appreciate it. I always try to tell you so, and circulate them.
Way back in the 90’s, Bill (my adored husband) reviewed books for the Rock Hill Herald. He laid out the bookpage (a full page!) every Sunday. It was his baby and he could do what he wanted unless someone very important came to Rock Hill and then that writer got featured.
Bill sent tearsheets to the publishers who supplied the books. Every Sunday. He rarely heard anything back. What did happen as he grew the bookpage is that we began getting unsolicited books by the pickup truck load. We donated many, many truckloads of books to the York County library system.
He did the same when he wrote reviews at the Patriot News from 2001 on for a few years.
We did NOT know that McClatchy, who owned the Rock Hill Herald sent his reviews far and wide. We don’t know about the Patriot (owned by Advance Publications). You really didn’t know at the time how many people saw and read your review.
Fast forward to today. I wrote lengthy book reviews on whatever caught my eye for Peschel Press. As per Bill, I always notified the publisher and, if I could, the author. I never heard anything back, including “would you like a review copy of “X”. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I continue to write capsule book reviews (under 200 words with cover image) for our Instagram account, posting every Saturday. I always link to the author of the book if they’re on Instagram. I virtually never hear anything back. Nor do I get any kinds of comments. It’s easy to comment on Instagram! Or heart! Nothing.
People claim they want reviews. They claim they want publicity.
I don’t think they do because they sure don’t act like it.
Based on my limited experience (I’m tiny on IG: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/ with under 1100 followers so I don’t count) authors, publicists, and publishers claim they want reviews but they don’t care when they get them and they don’t bother to do anything with them.
Even so, I will continue to boost the signal for each author I review. Maybe it will help them find an audience.
Also! If I really don’t like your book, I won’t review it unless I have a compelling reason.
Life is too short to review bad books.
I will note that I have heard from writers burned by sending out dozens of review copies to get — no reviews.
Yep! That sure does happen.
I know that when Bill was at the Herald (and then at the Patriot), he was flooded with books. If a title or premise didn’t intrigue him, it went straight to the library donation stack.
But sometimes, one would catch his eye, or mine, and we read, reviewed, enjoyed, and kept.
You just never know.
For individual, indie authors, blanketing the countryside with review copies is a bad, expensive idea.
For publishers, it’s part of the marketing budget.
I review books including yours on my personal dreamjournal. https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/
Then, after three days, I repeat them on some local groups and on Goodreads.
Telling authors is always a good way to increase your reach too :-). I certainly appreciate it, and promote it.
K. This being wordpress, you get them one by one.
Storm Dragon
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/1761345.html
Cecelia
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/1508957.html
Oops, that’s Georgina.
This is Cecily
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/1645540.html
Changeling’s Island
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/742513.html
Cloud Castles
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/1384477.html
Cuttlefish
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/989589.html
The Steam Mole
https://marycatelli.dreamwidth.org/989824.html
BTW my mother wants to know if this series will have more books.
I have one more planned, but as I can’t get rights back and they paid me princely less than $10 this last year… I am a bit iffy about enriching the publisher.
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