My Guidelines for Book Reviews

While my traffic isn't anywhere near where other blogs are, I know that I'm getting more and more traffic from book review seekers and maybe even some authors who would like me to review their books. So I thought that I'd take a moment from my insanely hectic day to put up some brief guidelines. Here they are:

1. Don't expect a positive review. On the whole I'm a nice person and I don't want to write a review that your book sucked or you are a lousy writer. I mean, come on, I'm not a trained literary reviewer and I know my reviews won't end up in the NYTimes.* But I won't also gush about your book unless it really moves me. A tepid review is just about as far as I think I'd go...unless you send me a total piece of poop.
   
2. I like to consider myself an expert on women in science studies, a lover of feminist science fiction, and a seeker of feminist and/or cute children's books. I also love biographies, Latina-centric and thinking mama-lit books. Essentially, anything feminist is fair game.
   
3. I don't want to try reviewing self-help books. I still haven't read Gloria Steinem's self-help book and it's on my book shelf.
   
4. Everything else is a crap shoot. Pitch me your book and I'll get back to you as quickly as possible. I'm open to other genres, really I am.
   
5. My technorati rating is not in the triple digits, but I feel that this undervalues my real reach in the blogosphere. (To readers, help me out here...link me and favorite me!)
6. To reach me, please leave a comment or send an email to my first name.last name @ gmail.com. Please do NOT send email to my work address. They'd very cool about things, but I'd rather not start getting email for this blog at work. Thank you so much! added June 3, 2008
   

While my to-read-pile is not shrinking, I do my best to read your books as fast as possible. And I always, always make my deadlines.



* Unless the NYTimes decides to start syndicating blog reviews instead of using professionals that is.


Technorati tags: book review