Months ago, a few book bloggers (including yours truly) were interviewed by a popular writer for an online article. For various and sundry reasons, the article never appeared so we are posting it here with the four original questions that were posed and one bonus question.
Why do you blog? Is it for free books or just the love of reading?
I see it as performing a public service. My reviewers and I take the time to read books and make a judgment as to whether this is worth the average reader/consumer’s money and – even more importantly – time. These days both are seen as precious commodities. We either recommend a book or refrain from doing so.
If you agree to be in a book tour and you hate the book, do you review it anyway?
When this happened to me, I notified the tour leader that I was withdrawing; I had no desire to ruin someone else’s party (a debut party for the first-time author). But I also told the tour leader that I would be writing and posting my own honest and less-than-favorable review at a slightly later date.
By the way, on Joseph’s Reviews I’ve periodically posted multiple reviews of the same book. In one recent case, three of us reviewed the same novel. I did not recommend buying and reading it, but two other reviewers did. None of us claims perfect knowledge, but we try to clarify for the review reader how and why we each arrived at our own position. Sometimes the difference in perspective can be due to different life experiences, or even recent positive or negative events in our lives.
Why do you think you’re “qualified” to review books?
I have a degree in Communication Arts, wrote music and entertainment reviews in college, and earned a law degree from a major university. I’ve also taught, done significant writing and editing as a government Public Information Officer, and done some pre-publication work for a publisher based in England. However, I think the key prerequisite for being a reviewer is the ability to be completely honest about one’s views. It is just one opinion, but it should always be a frank and honest one.
Does you blog have anything to do with your own writing (i.e., did you start it because you were writing a novel or are the two totally unrelated)?
Because I enjoyed writing reviews at a period when (in the words of The Who), “I wore a younger man’s clothes,” I elected to do something similar with my adult leisure time. I was an avid reader of music reviews when I was in college, and I often loved the critics whose opinions I most often disagreed with – those who didn’t necessarily sway my own views but whose consistency and tenacity I admired.
Writing an engaging, and hopefully, convincing book review is a bit like trying to fashion a proper legal argument.
If you had the power to do so, what one thing would you change about the book publishing industry?
A number of years ago, when you purchased a blank music recording cassette, part of the purchase price went to reimburse artists for lost royalties. The same is true today when you buy a blank CD-R. I would like to see a small part of the purchase price for each book – hardback, paperback or e-book – used to fund a central editing clearinghouse. In my fantasy, all books would receive a final read and edit prior to publication. The clearinghouse would have to issue a stamp of approval before the publisher could actually release the book. (Crazy people and speed readers such as I would likely work at the literal publisher’s clearinghouse.)
There’s nothing more frustrating than picking up a “finished” book and finding it loaded with typos and simple mistakes that should have been corrected in the editing and fact-checking processes. For example, my wife was just reading a novel that placed the UCLA campus in Brentwood – which is likely a major surprise to the tens of thousands of students on the grounds at Westwood!
Joseph Arellano
Joseph's Reviews 