How to be a Great Reviewer

Katy Guest, the literary editor at the Independent on Sunday, has written an very interesting piece on the gender imbalance in reviewing, quoting my recent blog on the topic and kindly calling me her 'brilliant predecessor' (thanks Katy!).

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/where-are-all-the-female-reviewers-2246874.html

Katy mentions the male critics who send lists of books they'd like to review with handy notes including the publisher, pub date, author and why they are qualified to review it. Women never do that, she says (I recognise the phenomenon well). This is a key point - everyone likes to have their life made easier, especially hard-pressed literary editors.

I know, don't all sob at once - it is the world's greatest job - but books pages are under incredible pressure. They don't tend to sell ads and are vulnerable to the essentially philistine nature of newspapers. (I have sat through many an editorial conference where about 50 per cent of the time was spent talking about football.) They are squeezed for space and budget. As Katy notes, lit eds tend to be women but the cynic in me sees this as more of a sign how low status the job is, rather than as a sign of equality. I don't think there are many female sports editors out there...

Anyway, if some helpful chap comes along and makes your job easier at a stroke, why search elsewhere? Here are my other top tips for reviewers - female and male. You will be beloved of your commissioning editor if you bear them in mind.

1) Ask for a word count and deadline. Stick to them. Do not ring up on the day and say, 'Yeah, but what's the real deadline?' Or 'When do you go to press?'

2) If you include at the top of your review the title, author, publisher, price and your byline, if you file on time and keep to the word count, you will instantly be in the top 20 per cent of the lit ed's current reviewers. (I am of course assuming the basics: that you can write...)

3) If reviewing non-fiction, do not summarise the entire contents of the book then say at the end: 'A fascinating story, well told by X'.

4) Or if you do, when rung up and asked to add critical comment, don't say, 'Well you didn't give me enough space for that.'

5) If reviewing fiction, do not give away the plot - as a rule of thumb you can talk about the first third of a novel in detail, but even then do not give away major twists. (Jacket blurb writers often don't adhere to this rule, surprisingly.)

6) Be very sparing with the word 'I'. Obviously you have to have an opinion, and state it, but more than one or two appearances in a review sounds weird. Aim for something more Olympian.

7) Entertain the reader. Do not sell the book. That's not your job.

8) Do not refer to the blurb or any cringe-making formula cooked up by the publishers, however annoying. It's probably not the author's fault that it says 'a Ulysses for the 21st century' on the jacket.

9) Never say a book is a good toilet book (unless it's called 'The Good Toilet Book'). It is not a compliment. No one spends a year writing just to conjure up the mental image of you straining on the lavvy.

10) Do not use the entire review space to bemoan the state of British publishing or of that publishing house in particular (because they turned down your own book).

Incidentally, don't even expect to get a review in a national newspaper if you've never reviewed anywhere before. That's like fancying doing a bit of acting and ringing up the National Theatre. As for how to get started... that's a subject for another blog.