The Giving and
Receiving of Book Reviews
I
suspect by now you have my message that the best gift
you can give your favorite novelist or a writer whose
book has helped you in your life or career is to write
a career. But did you know that when you do that, you
can also benefit your own book or business? In other
words, you can make a good deed—in this case writing
reviews for others’ books—work to benefit
your own life in both the sense of Karma and in the
real, down-to-earth sense of benefiting in little ways
like building your Google footprint or furthering your
career.
Do
not worry. It’s all ethical. It’s all part
of traditional publishing industry standards. You include
bylines and tag lines or credit lines as part of the
copy you submit. You know what a byline is. Your name
appears under the headline of an article, book title,
or whatever, and suddenly those solitary hours sitting
in front of a computer make sense. Tag lines or credit
lines are the caboose on almost everything you publish.
These
identifiers are as important as a lunchbox filled with
a hearty sandwich is to a railway engineer. Without
one he or she would have a tough time maintaining the
energy to keep the train moving. These credits are your
assurance that if someone wants to communicate with
you or offer you an opportunity, they can do it easily.
By including them as part of your submissions, they
help you control what you would like your audience to
know about you and even direct them to the best place
to learn more about your book. They also help the author
whose book you are reviewing. Because your name is known
by many (or soon will be), they add credibility to any
review you write.
You
know which media use credits and what styles they prefer
because you read their submission guidelines and pay
attention to the styles of the magazines, newspapers,
and Web sites you read. No matter what you write—including
reviews—you save your editor the trouble of writing
the tagline by submitting your copy the way you’d
most like to see it. In doing so, you make her job easier
and maintain better control of your own branding.
Your
credit line should include your name, the URL or address
of your Web site, the name of your book, and a little
about you. It’s a nice extra to include an e-mail
address your readers can use to give you feedback. Many
authors maintain a separate e-mail account to accommodate
and identify responses generated from their credit lines.
Hint:
Rarely seen in taglines is some kind of
a hook to encourage the reader to visit your Web site.
It might be an offer for a free e-book, a contest,
or an intriguing bit of information that will pique
the reader’s curiosity enough to take action.
Sometimes
these credit lines can be expanded to a mini biography.
You will have one in your media kit, and to save time
you can copy-and-paste it at the end of the reviews
where word count is not as important or style guidelines
aren’t as restrictive. Many bloggers, as an example,
love to publish a full paragraph with your review rather
than keeping the credit line to twenty-five or fifty
words. See examples of taglines in Chapter Twelve.
Here
are two examples, the first a mini bio, the second a
shorter tagline. The longer one might be a credit used
with an article on a Web site where length is not as
important. Notice that information may be mixed and
matched to fit with style guidelines for different media
and to suit the different titles (genres) an author
may write in.
Example
of a Long Tagline or a mini biography:
“Leora
Krygier is the author of First the Raven, When She
Sleeps, and Keep Her. She was a finalist in the Ernest
Hemingway First Novel Competition the James Fellowship,
and the William Faulkner Writing Competition. Lauded
for her “linguistic spell” and “poetic
prose,” Leora is also the author of Juvenile
Court: A Guide for Young Offenders and Their Parents.
She is a referee with the Superior Court of Los Angeles,
and has been profiled in the LA Times for her innovative
use of essay writing in juvenile dispositions. She
lives in Los Angeles with her husband and is looking
for the perfect poodle to become a member of her family.”
Example
of a Short Tagline, the kind that newspapers and some
others use:
Leora
Krygier is a juvenile court referee and frequent contributor
to magazines for young adults and parents. Reach her
at xxxx@aol.com.
Humor
and a personal touch can work very well in your credits
or biographies.
Caveat:
Editors may edit your tagline or may not use it at
all. If they publish content you have offered at no
charge, they should include a tagline or mini bio
as a courtesy and probably will if you’ve included
it as part of the copy you submit. If not, politely
request that they use one. If they refuse, offer your
material elsewhere next time.
Amazon
is an exception to the rule for using credit lines with
your reviews. Do not include either a byline or credit
line. However, when you have an Amazon Author Profile
Page, your reviews on the site will link to that page.
It’s a very nice tradeoff indeed. Check Chapter
Nine of this book much of this column was excerpted
from (How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and
Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews
to build and sustain a writing career) will give you
information on babying your Amazon Profile Page and
Chapter Five will tell inexperienced reviewers a little
help writing reviews they can be proud of.
Tips and Tidbits
(Each month in this box,
Carolyn lists a Tidbit that will help authors
write or promote better. She will also include
a Tip to help readers find a treasure among long-neglected
books or a sapphire among the newly-published.)
Suggestion
for Holiday Gifts for Friends and Writers
Gift
for Writers and Readers!: :Everyone is
a reviewer these days. It’s about
time. I have always loved to share our
love of books. My new How
To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and
Ethically: The ins and outs of using
free reviews to build and sustain a writing
career is newly available as a paperback
book. It is a big, fat 340 page book that
covers the getting and writing of reviews
so thoroughly that it will be helpful
to both readers who want to share their
books and writers who need to use them
to share the books they have written.
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I
recently reviewed Herodotus’
Histories (published by Penguin) here
on MyShelf.com. If you’ve tried
to read it and put it aside, now is the
time to try again. If you’ve always
wanted to read it and haven’t, now
is the time to do it. The translation
and foreword are truly remarkable and
the paperback is a special edition worthy
of placing on a coffee table to impress
fellow readers.
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