book review journal

book review journal

The Importance of Book Review Journals

1. Introduction

Despite this, they have been something of a neglected child in the world of scholarly communication. This is particularly true for the humanities and social sciences. There are many kinds of book review journals. Some are highly specialized and run by learned societies. Others are more generalist and take a journalistic approach to reviewing. They may be subscription-based, open access, or free to access. Some are tied to a physical publication, others are standalone e-journals or part of a larger review site. Book reviews also appear in more generalist journals, and often it is difficult to know what constitutes a book review journal and where reviews can be found.

Book review journals play an important role in the scholarly communication process. They are an important tool for promoting books, and for scholars, an invaluable resource for keeping up to date with the latest publications in their field. Together with collection and availability information, reviews enable scholars to assess the quality and importance of a book. This can be especially important when evaluating the suitability of a publication as a teaching resource. For librarians and academics working in collection development, book review journals provide a constant source of evaluative information to inform purchasing decisions. With the growth of electronic publishing, it is likely that the amount of books being published will continue to increase. The role of book review journals in sifting through and critically evaluating this material will become increasingly important.

2. Benefits of Book Review Journals

A book review journal is primarily aimed at libraries, bookstores, and publishers, and is written for the purpose of evaluating and promoting books. Review journals, also known as periodicals, are serials and are usually distributed weekly or monthly. Some, particularly those that are substantial in size, are even considered reference materials. Because there are thousands of books published each year, a book review journal is a very valuable source of information to the industry. Long after a book is released, relevant reviews are needed because they keep the book alive through promotion and publicity. Primarily, review journals help stimulate sales of books. Books that are positively reviewed are showcased in bookstores and libraries, while some review journals provide information on where to purchase a book or who the publisher is. This is a great advantage to small press and self-publishers who do not have national bookstore access for getting their books on shelves. High praise from a review journal can also be used as a marketing tool for reprints or for selling the book to a foreign country.

3. Criteria for Evaluating Books

When critics write reviews, they must have criteria to follow. Let us take the example of Olive Beaupre Miller, publisher, writer, and editor. She said that before reviewing a book, one should first consider the purpose of the author and the title of the book. Then examine the table of contents and index, the organization of the material, the author’s treatment of his subject, and the style of writing. Did the author accomplish his purpose? Was the book well written? Who would be interested in buying the book? Finally, locate similar books in the same field and compare them with the book being reviewed. This is just an example of using explicit criteria, but most reviewers have informal criteria in mind, such as whether they found the book interesting, if the author convinces them of his thesis, if the author accomplished what he set out to do, etc. Even if criteria are not defined, they are usually obvious from the context, and many experts believe that making the criteria explicit is not necessary. Nonetheless, they would agree that defined criteria are important for critical judgments in any field. In regard to judgments, they are based on evidence and reasoning, can be checked for accuracy and relevancy, and are open to debate and revision. This is in contrast to personal opinions, which are often biased, based on little evidence, and debatable. The concept of opinion-based reviews versus reviews based on a judgment has a direct impact on the quality of a review.

4. Role of Book Review Journals in the Publishing Industry

Having talked about the functions of a book review journal and its importance for the author and reader, we now move on to talk about its importance for the publishing industry, which is actually an umbrella term encompassing the demands and necessities of both the authors and the readers. A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. It’s reaching the heights of evaluation now, but at the same time, book reviews of the literary kind are meant to serve as a guide on a reader’s quest for literary knowledge. They do help in making a book popular. But why is popularity so important? Because the more popular the book, the more sales it will make. This popularity can be in terms of the general reputation of the author or that of the particular book at hand. While reputation can sell an unknown book, it is not so reliable a factor. What is to be noted is that the review has a constantly updating nature on the sales of a particular book and subsequently the reputation of the author. A good review will drive sales above what they otherwise would have been. This is the greatest indirect contribution of a book review to the literary industry, but it is not to say that increased sales are the only important factor. To get these, in our bid to analyze the review’s effect on the literary industry, we could conduct a case study of authors who have been reviewed both well and badly in comparison to the sales of their books. This would give us clear evidence of how the review can affect an author’s reputation, but it should be noted that authors, particularly the less reputed ones, have been known to change their style of writing based on reviews in an attempt to write a more “review-friendly” book next time round! Advertising his book at the time the review is written, an author can also pay for a favorable review! This is an attempt to manipulate the gaining of a good reputation from the particular book at hand. It was no less said by Samuel Johnson that “The utmost is when a man is ubiquitous by the review of his works.” But to parallel this scenario, popularity seeking might not be good for the literary industry.

5. Conclusion

We take as axiomatic the fact that there is a direct correlation between the significance of a given book and the extent of its subsequent critical reception. It is scarcely necessary to argue the case for the classics; all too often, however, the sensitive critic is at his most acute when dealing with the less important works of an age. We notice, for example, that Sainte-Beuve’s reputation as a critic tends to fluctuate in a manner directly proportionate to the value which the contemporary reader sets upon the author who is Sainte-Beuve’s subject at any given time. But it is with the latter type of work and the period of romanticism that the literary historian is chiefly concerned, and it is to the book review journals of the early nineteenth century that he must largely turn in his quest for the understanding of a complex literary development.