

Ask HN: Why am I getting asked to review books? - lukevella

I&#x27;ve been approached to review books a number of times now. I&#x27;m curious to know if this is common or not. Has anyone here been approached to do a book review? If yes, have you ever gone through with one? How does it work? Is it worth doing?<p>From my experience, in return for the review you get 2 free copies of the book and a mention.
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skidoo
I have written several thousand review articles over the last dozen years or
so. Reviews of (in descending order) comics, books, films and albums, for
diverse print and digital media. It is possible that those who approached you
sincerely would like your take specifically. That does happen, but more often,
I have found, is the case of reviewing being a cheap effort at adcopy.

Honestly, I feel that aside from family and friends of those responsible for
the source work, reviews generally go unread by the bulk of the masses. I
really think most PR persons are incredibly lazy, and instead of making
efforts to think outside of boxes, rely heavily on the old standbys of
reviews, interviews, and press releases (ready for copy and pasting among the
blogging elite). If the creator responsible is not "a name", then PR persons
are compelled to get someone, anyone, to view the work. And then, more often
than not, the PR persons pray that such person will do the selling for them.

I realize this sounds bitter. (I've spent far more efforts on promoting indie
creators than I have on developing my own works, to very mixed results.) But
ultimately, composing review articles is essentially unpaid adcopy work. I
think a strong review should be handled along the lines of a high school book
report. The habit can be a neat exercise unto itself, as far as writing in
general. But there are many snakes in the grass.

All said, if the work/s in question truly strike you (for good or ill), then
by all means have a go at formulating your opinion on the matter for others.
If only for the sake of trying something new. But be weary of getting locked
into it. You do one review, then the publisher or producer may well send you
another soon enough. And as I am fond of saying, inundation only suits dry
fields.

