No More Bad Reviews

As per a New York Times article Buzzfeed will no longer feature bad reviews. The writer of the article seemed to veer back and forth between thinking this was a good idea and then finishing up with a dig at the whole concept. My thinking is it is the final evolution in the idea the Internet fostered long ago  has taken hold big time....anybody can be anything without any sort of work at all. Or like grade school we all get a ribbon for trying. There are no losers in T ball

Taking the first concept though lets face it you want to be a rock and roll star then burn a CD. You want to be a writer publish a book on Amazon. Boom. You are the writer or the rock star  or both. The point is the message is look you really don't have to pay your dues at all just start. The only bummer in this equation was that people would evaluate your work in the form of a review. At least if you became a writer they would. What a drag.

Someone would actually say if they thought it was any good. And what purpose does this serve? Buzzfeed thinks it serves no purpose. Maybe. But of course the message that we are all the same and all have the same talent is furthered by this sort of everybody gets a star for trying motif. Lets face it we are reviewed every day. We lose jobs. We get divorced. We sink into bankruptcy. We lose our homes. Or we become fabulously wealthy or famous. Another sort of review.

So why the hands off on a a literary review? Sorry. If you pick up the pen then someone is going to review it and it might be bad. What does this do? It lets you know where you rank and how much work you have to do. Yes there are bad bad reviews but there is generally some truth lurking out there somewhere. It all comes down I guess to if you just want a ribbon for trying...

Or a trophy for winning.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

The Art of Bad Reviews

We live in a time when bad reviews might be needed more than ever. I was listening to an NPR segment on the art of bad reviews and there is actually an award for the best hatchet job of the year. Someone who wrote the most insightful if not literate if not well written if not cutting review. In the age of the Internet one would think that the bad review would be in its heyday. There are more books being published than ever before and more people reviewing them. So why do they say the book review is in trouble.

What they are referring to is the day when there was only the book review written by trained critics. There really were only a handful. In fiction you have Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist, New York Times. After that it is whatever paper still has a book section. In the old days there were these select critics and one could make a case that the art of the bad book review was in its heyday. But with the splintering of the Literary community into parts and the the rise of the citizen reviewer the art is lost to I like or I don't like.

But I would say the art is still there. There are bad reviews out there and they are very good. And many are very trenchant in their interpretation of the book and some are brilliant. My point is the same person who can write a good bad review can write a good positive review. And people need to know what is good and what is bad more than ever with all the books being published.

So while the old small club of professionals may be gone...a whole new host of reviewers have sprung up to take over.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Paying For Reviews

Someone asked me the other day if I paid for my review in Kirkus. I did not. But the review was very good and the assumption was that I did pay for it. Which brings up the whole thing of paying for reviews. Lets face it the dam has been opened and we are now awash in authors willing to pay for just about anything to get their books noticed. You cannot blame them but these type of reviews along with the people who pop up with hundreds of Amazon reviews do not really help the cause. The truth is books are still sold by word of mouth or word of internet.

Lets start here with this. People envy money but they admire talent. Money can get you a lot of things and people want those things. We do envy the guy with the Porche or the guy with the nice house or nice boat or nice anything. We want those things too. But we don't admire the person. In fact we might detest the rich person. Look at the way the one percent is treated. We certainly don't admire the rich people but we sure envy them. So it is in the literary world.

We envy bestsellers. Who would not. But we admire a talented writer. We admire them when we read their books and we know that only a few people can do this. It is the way we feel when we read Fitzgerald or Faulkner or David Foster Wallace. There is something there has nothing to do with money. Since Fitzgerald died broke it must be something beyond the monetary. It is talent. And all the paid for reviews and ads and shoutouts and blitzing will not give us that admiration.

There are some things believe it or not that money cannot buy.

www.williamhazelgrove.com