[Susan McLean]

I've mentioned before that I have resolved to do more reviewing on Amazon.com (or other online venues that sell books) when I have the time. I think it can be particularly helpful for poetry books, which often don't get many reviews, online or in print. I don't get much pleasure reading done when I am teaching (and if I read anything then, I don't have time to review it), but during breaks, if I happen to read a book I particularly like, I am trying to make time for writing a mini-review of it. I just posted one on Amazon for Ned Balbo's book The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems. (If I sounded a bit formal in my mention of it on the thread about what people have been reading, it was because I was already in the process of writing my mini-review of it.)

So many of the famous print critics seem to take more pleasure in lambasting poets than in pointing out which ones are enjoyable to read, but I'm more interested in hearing what I might like than what I ought to avoid. If I were writing for a journal, I would feel I had to spend more time on it, and the review would most likely never get done. But I can usually write a mini-review in less than an hour. I have certainly appreciated hearing what other people on Eratosphere like. It has led me to many excellent poets that I might otherwise have missed. It is my assumption that the big online booksellers are the way to reach the largest number of readers. These online reviews can't take the place of the other, more-extensive reviews, which can send people looking for the books in the first place. But they may make a difference in terms of whether potential buyers end up buying the book they are considering. The more positive experiences people have when reading a poetry book, the more likely they are to pick up another one in the future.

Susan

[Michael Juster]

Susan has never been more right. We need to speak up for the kind of work we love.

[Jehanne Dubrow]

Here, here! I know how grateful I am for Susan's lovely review of Stateside on amazon. I'm certain that her kind and thoughtful words have sold copies of the book.

[Rory Waterman]

We do. But it will do nothing or almost nothing for sales.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Hear, hear, indeed, but although I would listen to Susan because I "know" her and respect her judgment, I don't pay any attention to the reviews on Amazon because they are mostly buddy reviews and it's easy to tell. Some are enemy reviews, of course, and those are equally easy to spot. If I want to find out more about a book, I look for reviews in places I believe to be more neutral such as literary magazines online, though not even then can one be sure.

I remember a Swedish writer once saying to me over lunch that one couldn't trust any reviews in the Stockholm papers because everyone had slept with everyone and either he/she was getting even for having been jilted or was making nice because he/she felt bad about dumping the author being reviewed.

This may or may not be true. And I am not casting aspersions on any reviewer anywhere. Stockholm excepted.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Amazon reviews of course are a mixed bag. Like Janice says, there are lots and lots of junk reviews. But there are well-considered thoughtful pieces too, like Susan’s on Ned Balbo, which makes me want to buy the book. It’s usually pretty easy to tell when the review is coming from the right place. I'm definitely swayed to buy a book at Amazon, when I am already considering it anyway, when there's an intelligent or sensitive take on it by someone who took the time to write a piece. I'm not so keen on the one-to-five stars system, though. I imagine a lot of potential buyers just glance at how many stars there are without reading much of the actual reviews.

[Rory Waterman]

I'm sure there is indeed a lot of log-rolling going on at Amazon, where there are no floodgates - and of course it happens in the magazines too. Someone recently asked us if we'd care to review his book, and when I agreed (the book looked interesting and came from without the usual places) he suggested that he might send it straight to a suitable reviewer himself rather than to me. I told him we don't do things like that, and have not heard from him since.

New Walk does not run reviews written by friends of an author, as far as possible; and I will probably never write for publication a review of a book by someone I know. Honest reviewers don't necessarily make many friends, and I am certain that a lot of reviewers are dishonestly nice in order to ingratiate themselves, which is lovely for everyone but the reader.

I would feel very differently about writing mini-reviews on Amazon, though, which sounds like an excellent way to toast work you admire regardless of where it has come from.