Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Herley
Thanks, ondabeach. We really need a single site, reliable and unbiased, the obvious place for people to go to look for new books. The reviews out there already (at LibraryThing, Goodreads, Feedbooks, Manybooks, etc.) could perhaps be incorporated, but it might be tricky tracing all those reviewers to get permission to reproduce their work.
Professional reviewing is a bit of a treadmill. At the moment, critics tend to be badly paid, and they often have to read whatever literary editors give them. Some critics are also authors who simply use reviews to boost their pals or get their own back on enemies. We would need to scrub all that, let the pro. critics choose the books they want to review, and pay them decently. A bonus could be earned for a review which is sufficiently highly rated by registered users. If the reviewer is also an author, he/she should be encouraged openly to declare whatever allegiances were at stake -- this would make the reviews even more entertaining and increase the ratings.
But I see the bulk of reviews coming from the readers, who could also be paid the bonus. The comments on each review could form a discussion thread in which the authors should be encouraged to take part, defending themselves if necessary or blushingly accepting praise. This would be a huge departure from present practice: it's considered infra dig to comment on your own reviews, and especially infra dig to empty a plate of linguini over a hostile reviewer's head if you spot him in a restaurant!
Besides the review system, you could have a simple "star-rating" which readers could apply, once only, to an individual title. So you'd be able to search the database for "most highly rated", "best reviews", and "most commented on reviews". By providing filters for "genre", "format", "price", etc., would-be readers should quickly be able to find something of interest.
Just a few thoughts. I perceive this as the perfect time to start such a site, before e-reading really takes off. If there are many review sites, each offering a slightly different approach, the benefit for readers and indeed authors, not to mention for the site owners, will be much reduced.
|
All you really need is a Reddit clone with an upvote/downvote system and that would keep it as honest as can be (at least initially). Pick a name, something like Readr (people seem to like stuff with vowels missing) and go from there. Shit, I've got a web-domain that's pretty much going unused at fictionmonster.com if anybody wants to use that to trial this thing.
My main concern with any system or site of this kind is that it be open, and not moderated. With moderation comes bias, and with bias the reviews become less and less honest (as we can see now with most professional book reviewers who are owned by corporate interests).
Make it democratic, make it a community, and you're onto something. If all it does is try to recreate the terrible hierarchies of the old reviewing system or become a haven for 'buy-my-book spam' (incidentally one of the reasons I don't bother much with Writers' Corner any longer) then it will fail miserably.