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International Reviewer Appreciation Day

March 10, 2008 At lunch today with the Tor publicity crew, we were discussing the practice of sending finished copies of books to reviewers to thank them for positive reviews, and I tossed out an offhand comment about how great it would be to have International Reviewer Appreciation Day. Everyone seemed delighted by the idea, and many suggestions were made for how an author might best show appreciation to a reviewer who gave a helpful or admirable review. (I include under this umbrella not only positive reviews but also those which provide constructive criticism, a sadly overused and misused term but one not entirely devoid of meaning. While I don't think anyone gets much out of a purely negative review, I think it's quite possible to point out flaws in a way that both authors and readers find useful.)

So I hereby unilaterally declare March 21st International Reviewer Appreciation Day. That should give all of you authors and publicists plenty of time to polish your thank-you letters and send small but lovely gifts that could not possibly be construed as bribes. I'm sure the PW powers that be would like me to insert a note here that we can't accept or forward gifts or messages for our anonymous reviewers; our mailroom is busy enough as it is! Consider posting a thank-you message in your blog instead, or in the comments of this post.

As for those who feel they have reason to be upset or angry at their books' reviewers, remember that bad publicity is still publicity, and consider March 21st a day to cheerfully thumb your nose at the dastards and fools and get on with writing or promoting the next book. Writing well, after all, is the best revenge.

EDIT: It seems that I did not make it entirely clear which parts of this post are serious and which are tongue-in-cheek. To clarify:

• As I noted, PW cannot and would not accept notes or gifts to send to our reviewers. One of the reasons our reviews are anonymous is to protect against even the slightest hint or chance of publisher influence.
• The mention of gifts was a joking reference to my earlier post, not a serious suggestion.
• PW is apparently no longer passing along finished copies to reviewers, a policy change of which I was unaware. Publishers, save your stamps!

My apologies for any confusion or concern.

Posted by Rose Fox on March 10, 2008 | Comments (0)