The Writer's Life Series, #3 - Advice from "Perspectives on Writing Reviews"

• As a reviewer: "You grit your teeth and stand behind what you have to say."
  
  
• As a writer: "You can't control your work after its out in the world."
  
  
• As an editor assigning book reviews: "I have a huge database to draw from and sometimes writers approach me. I match the book to the expertise of the reviewer. I believe it's not a good idea to have a book reviewed by a friend of the author, or by her enemy. I note each reviewer's writing ability and way of interacting (i.e., are they hard to work with?). WRB pays 14 cents a word."
  
  
• As a reader of reviews: "I enjoy the Times restaurant reviews although I've never been to any of the restaurants that have been featured."
  
  
• As a media observer: "Although women make fewer appearances on the op-ed pages, they are as good as men at writing criticism."

• I'm seeing some disturbing trends, like the tendency for a writer to become an expert in an obscure niche, preferably youth-oriented, or the celebrity reviewer, or the emphasis on the private lives of movie stars. I've been told to write like People magazine. A writer writes a feature story on the artist and then reviews the concert. Once you've written a feature, there's a tendency to soften the critical review. There's a huge forum for reviews online; getting paid for them is another matter.

• Reviewing is taste. I receive stacks of books and my challenge is to get from 120 books down to three to review. I ignore the "puff" and press packets from HarperCollins and Random House. I put local and first-time novelists at the top. I weed out books with violence, improbable plots, and profligate use of adverbs. I try to be positive: I've always been unable to look a writer in the eye when I've given a bad review. Do not send a bad review to a friend.