Who are the Best and Worst Reviewers?

[Keith thomson]

The other day, my fellow Huffington Post blogger took NY Times tv critic Alessandra Stanley to the worldwide woodshed. In so doing, Mr. Levinson recognized that criticizing a critic is almost never done. By the same token, their praise is sung about as often as good umpires. My question to you: Who are the best and the worst reviewers of books in our genre? And Why?

[Dan Coleman]

Yes, I would try to leave a thank you of some kind. If I were lucky enough to have a review, good or bad, long as it was about the story, or the writing of it, and not a personal attack.

[Toni Osborne]

Dan I never noticed personal attacks I guess the books and authors I read are generally liked......hum I will pay more attention next time.

[Keith thomson]

Reviewers who give good reviews to my upcoming book will receive BMWs.

[Dan Coleman]

LOL!

[Debbi Mack]

I hope they remember to mention that to the FTC! :)

[Toni Osborne]

hahaha love that one send it my way

[Dave Zeltserman]

It's not really a good idea since it can cause a conflict of interest. The Washington Post, for example, requires that their reviewers have no contact or relationship with the writers they review.

--Dave

[Tom Cooke]

Any one who takes the time to review my book is pretty much a hero to me. I am a regional writer and must depend on local papers to cover my work. The largest daily in my part of the world just finished massive lay offs and early retirements. They no longer covers books so I go hat in hand to the few publications left mostly small town weeklies and beg for mention. It's almost reached the point of, "good, bad, or indifferent, just spell the title right."

Of course, the most effective sales tool I have is me, usually in a setting that includes free alcohol. My sales pitch is as follows:
"This here is a purty good book. I'll rite ma name in it and give you a copy for fifteen bucks."
or
"Your wife can read a little can't she? Let me sign this book and you kin tell her you know a famous writer. Give me fifteen dollars and we'll fergit the tax."
As you might have guessed, reviews have very little to do with the success or failure of my book sales.

Tom

[I. J. Parker]

You do humor very well, Tom. That should help sales.

[doug anderson]

Stasio's good, but they don't give her enough space. Few reviewers have any real intellectual chops. A reviewer is not really a critic: a critic is (or used to be) someone who brings a wide range of knowledge to a field. Obviously, this is no longer the case. Someone might come to book reviewing through the cooking page. John Loomis mentioned the lack of a sense of humor in some reviewers: this is absolutely true. In teaching, I've realized the smartest students are the ones with a sense of humor; this probably holds true of reviewers as swell.

[Toni Osborne]

Sense of humour or just plain smart ass....

In my line of work those with too much sense of humour were dump ass.......hiding their lack of knowledge behind smart remarks....but again I was in engineering not literature....hum wonder Doug what my teachers thought of me...

[doug anderson]

I'm talking about the ability to see humor in the content of their reading.