I’ve got an opportunity to set up a subset, a country specific part, of Blogcritics. This isn’t something set in stone as yet but it’s an idea that’s been discussed recently.
We would be hosted on the Blogcritics site and very definitely be part of their umbrella organisation.
However, I think there’s a value to add by being much more UK centric.
OK, now, there’ll be a little money raised by Amazon links, advertising and the like, which will pay for the infrastructure. But there won’t be anything like enough to be paying contributors, just as there isn’t with the US site.
So, the question is, who would like to write for it?
There’s a couple of things that might make it more attractive. I shall be beating the bushes to get review copies for people (I’ve already got the logistics of that worked out) so there should be a good supply of interesting (and free!) books (books to start with, moving on to CDs and DVDs as soon as poss.) available for review. So that’s the first thing, we’ll be getting copies of books you want to read anyway, in return for which you write a review.
I’ll also be pushing the site, when up and running, to the various regional newspapers and smaller magazines in the UK. I’m hoping that some of them will start to pick up reviews for their own use. The relationship here will be that they contract (and pay) directly to you. We’re not going to try and take a cut. Yes, I know, these reviews can be badly paid, Literary Review pays about 40 quid if you’re lucky, others pay better. The major papers are NUJ rates which are considerably better. (And yes, I’m damn certain that Sam Leith, the Telegraph books editor will at least skim those pages….he’s already been giving advice).
If that goes well we’ll try a deal with a syndication service to make things easier.
For those who want to be or think they already should be writing for the majors a little tip. Reviews can be a good way into the system.
There is also the American thingie, Pajamas Media, coming. They will be trying to syndicate such things to the papers worldwide. The financial model I haven’t seen yet but Blogritics themselves are part of it and I’ve also had brief contact with Roger L. Simon on the subject (the answer was, yes, interesting).
So there may, as I say, may, be methods for actually making a little money out of more formal sales of reviews that are written for the new site.
Plus, of course, that bright shiny new copy of something you wanted to read already.
Now, in order for me to be successful in getting review copies I need to be able to convince the publicizers that this is more than just wanting free copies. That there is a system, an allocation system, and that the reviewers are at least literate.
So, could you email me/make a comment to this post giving your willingness to be part of this? The only commitment you are making is that if there is something you want to review, and we send it to you, that you will in fact write a review.
I need to know your name and the URL of your blog.
Just to let you know, Clive Davis has also been giving advice and will be joining us, not least in giving some brief tips on how more formal reviews should be structured. As he writes such for both the Washington and London Times (and many other places in the past) this should be helpful.
My rough take is that I need to gather 50 serious names before I start to talk to the PR people about getting copies. So, can you spread the word? Not only join up yourselves but also write this up for your readers? I’m sending emails to those I assume would want to join but of course, there’s tens of thousands more bloggers out there than I know about who might be interested.
It doesn’t matter whether your interest is in historical romance, sci-fi, literary novels, politics, economics, psychology, baroque music, whatever. There’s 80,000 new titles a year published in the UK and I’m hoping that we’ll get a good cross section, even if we don’t get all of them (!).
Over to you. Who wants to join or who has any further questions?
Oh, one thing I should make plain. This is not an ideologically based site. Obviously, whatever you want to put into a review is fine but there are no groupthink hurdles to overcome before joining. Don’t be put off by my own prejudices.
Leave a Reply