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The End of Kirkus and What Will Happen to Advance Reviews

December 11, 2009 - 11:10am — birdie

Analysis of yesterday's news story by Jerome Kramer, an independent publishing consultant in his blog, Publishing Perspectives.

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December 11, 2009 - 1:04pm — librarybob

Kirkus et al.

In my view we need professional commitment to garnering (and creating!) reviews on an ALA sponsored website. If we don't create a websource of critical high quality reviews, who will?

(Heck, I've gamed Amazon myself for a friend's book. It, and similar venues, are good for identifying popular material ... not so good for niche and small-publisher works. They, in my view, get lost through lack of attention.)

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December 18, 2009 - 3:31pm — Anonymous

LJ and BL

Library Journal and Booklist are two review sources that, in my opinion, do not offer the same kind of critique Kirkus provided. Let's face it, if a book makes it to the pages of LJ or BL, they will most likely get a "positive", non-critical review. That being said, Kirkus provided often "cranky", mean-spirited reviews which were not always necessary to a point; however, I appreciated their willingness to "mix it up" so to speak. As a model, I look towards The Economist book reviews: well written, balanced and often so nuanced as to provoke despair at the decision to purchase a particular title or not.

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December 12, 2009 - 10:50am — birdie

More on closing of Kirkus

New York Times article

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