The new who reviews

These days, the writing life is taking a back seat to the marketing life, because a lot of the most important promotional things have to be done before anyone sees your book. For example, I compiled a list of 25 places I’d like Russian Roulette to be reviewed and almost all of them said they wanted the books 4 months before publication. That’s why I spent my few spare moments last week sending out review copies.

The Washington Post Book World was at the top of my list. Sadly, the Post stopped publishing the separate book section. But when I called the paper to find out where to send their review copy I found that they still want books sent to “Book World.” It turns out that the section will live on as an online product.

I’m cool with that. Most people I know read the paper on line anyway. And maybe they will do what most internet reviews do and add a link to the book on Amazon.com so people can order one right away. That’s why my original list included a few internet-only reviewers. I also have five or six personal friends who review for a variety of publications. Naturally, they got advance copies.

That got me to 30 review sites, and I had 50 review copies. The more I thought about the whole internet review issue the more I thought I was missing a bet. Everybody I know who doesn’t buy their books in a bookstore goes to Amazon.com. So I went there. I looked at the profiles of the top reviewers, selecting the ones who focused on mystery novels. I sent them e-mails, and sent books to those who said they’d like to read Russian Roulette.

Who knows? Those reviewers may turn out to be more influential than the newspapers and magazines I mailed to. And at least I know they will take a look at the book.