I was talking to a group of aspiring writers the other day and I was intrigued to learn that most of their book buying was influenced by reviews in the national media. When I told them that most of the books published every week do not get reviewed by the national media, they were surprised. When I then went on to tell them that major publishers buy window space, special offers, book of the week space in book chains, they were further startled.
So, I thought it would be good to explore this idea out in the wide world. Anyone like to get in touch and let me know how they decide which books to buy?
An earlier agent of mine, told me that getting reviewed in the national media, without the backing of a major publisher, was like swimming through peanut butter. He reckoned that some research had been done by a friend of his that showed most reviewers with the nationals are OxBridge graduates and they mostly review books by fellow students at OxBridge. Does anyone know about this research? Unfortunately the agent in question is sleeping the big sleep now so I can't ask him?
I think MsLexia magazine did a survey about the number of male/female reviewers working for the national media and the number of male/female writers that were regularly reviewed. You won't be surprised to learn that the balance between male and female in both categories favoured the guys. So are the websites/facebook pages redressing this imbalance?
if you know of any research out there I'd love to hear about it.
So, I thought it would be good to explore this idea out in the wide world. Anyone like to get in touch and let me know how they decide which books to buy?
An earlier agent of mine, told me that getting reviewed in the national media, without the backing of a major publisher, was like swimming through peanut butter. He reckoned that some research had been done by a friend of his that showed most reviewers with the nationals are OxBridge graduates and they mostly review books by fellow students at OxBridge. Does anyone know about this research? Unfortunately the agent in question is sleeping the big sleep now so I can't ask him?
I think MsLexia magazine did a survey about the number of male/female reviewers working for the national media and the number of male/female writers that were regularly reviewed. You won't be surprised to learn that the balance between male and female in both categories favoured the guys. So are the websites/facebook pages redressing this imbalance?
if you know of any research out there I'd love to hear about it.
RSS Feed