Week 5 Prompt Response
I will be the first to admit that I am skeptical of ebook only publications for libraries. That said, the Amazon user review for The Billionaire’s First Christmas was helpful. I liked that it mentioned the book being told from two points of view. For readers of this genre, the review might be enough to prompt them to purchase the book. However, I would likely not purchase it for a library collection unless I already had a large readership of ebook romances and needed more. Perhaps this is unfair to the authors of these books, but when you have to defend your purchases to a board and the taxpaying public you are less likely to purchase Amazon published titles.
The blog review for this title was very poorly written. When I read a review like this, it is immediately obvious that it was not written by any sort of professional. There is no credibility there, and it ruins the book’s chances with me as a purchaser.
Of the reviews provided for Angela’s Ashes, the Booklist review is the most helpful to me. I tend to prefer reviews that have a “verdict” or succinct message at the end saying why you should purchase it. The Booklist review states “Expect demand, not only from those seduced by blurbs and interviews, but from word-of-mouth thereafter.” This is the perfect example of what a purchaser needs to know about Angela’s Ashes…that the book will be in demand! The School Library Journal review is also full of quirky details like “Stories of trying on his parents’ false teeth and his adventures as a post-office delivery boy will have readers laughing out loud.” Details like this that don’t retell the story but instead give you a sense of what’s inside are nice. Both of these reviews would help me feel confident as a purchaser.
I think it’s an indication of how brutal the publishing industry can be that some books get ample reviews while others don’t get any coverage. If a library had unlimited funds, they could purchase little known publications and market them to a wider audience. Alas, this isn’t the case for most libraries, so budgets must be spent on the “sure bets” by prominent publishers and authors. Well-reviewed books are more likely to be read by your patrons and more likely to help your collection remain relevant. Most libraries don’t have the luxury of buying more than a few self-published novels by local authors, for instance.
My thought on a review source printing negative reviews is: why bother? If a reviewer or publication that prints reviews finds that a book is so bad that they can only give it a negative review, why bother to waste anyone’s time? Spend that time, effort, and “print real estate” on a positive review for another book. The caveat to this is when a well-known author’s new book or a highly-anticipated book is reviewed and it is just...bad. This doesn’t happen often, but in that case the source may feel compelled to print their negative review as a service to those who depend on their opinion.
I purchased for childrens’ and teen fiction and nonfiction for ten years. I often used School Library Journal and Kirkus reviews to help me make collection decisions. I also read Goodreads reviews online when it felt prudent. One of my favorite aspects of School Library Journal reviews is that they will often mention when a purchase would be useful as an “additional purchase” which is a nice way to say “your library doesn’t have to have this book unless you have extra money and need to beef up this area of your collection.” Although I didn’t often read Amazon reviews as a purchasing tool, I used to comb through the “coming soon” section of Amazon and publisher sites to see what was being published in the coming months. This helped me to plan for budgeting and processing purposes.
As a purchaser, I did enjoy keeping my eye out for sleeper hits, unique titles that could fill difficult niches like YA biographies, and lists of titles that may catch someone’s eye. This lndie Next List from Indiebound.com is an example of books for adults that might make good “extra purchases” to round out a collection. These are books that people may not have heard of, but with the right promotion, displays, and buzz from staff they can give great personality to your collection.
That is a very good point about reading a negative review of a big author book. You are correct, sometimes a new book just stinks and everyone will read it anyway because it is written by xyz. It is helpful to know that it will still get cir, but the feedback may not be very good as the book is returned. That helps the front desk ladies at my library know that if someone is dying to read it, but it is checked out, they can pass along the information that the book is not as liked as some of the author's other books. That leaves the door open for the front desk ladies to find some read alikes to suggest to the patron that will expand the reader's net a little bit! (I try to find ways to turn negatives into lemon pie!)
ReplyDeleteI do get your point about negative book reviews, but at the same time, why not? Negative book reviews can do a few things, like provide criticism for the author, especially if they are a big name. You're right, people will likely read it because of the name, but that only happens if they continue to do well. If big name authors start to continuously write lesser books, how are they to know how to fix it. They need people's opinions and if they are only getting positives, how are they to grow? Negative reviews can also help people choose what they want to read. If someone didn't like the writing style of the book and they write about it in their review, it could save someone the trouble with a similar taste. There are too many books, and people, in the world for all of them to be positive. If all reviews of a book are positive, I kind of feel like it's a lie because not everyone on the world likes the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Laura was saying that every book review needs to be a positive one, just that reviewers shouldn't feel obliged to write reviews for books they think are bad. And I agree with that sentiment - it can be fun and cathartic to read negative reviews of a book you didn't like, but I don't think it's very helpful in a professional capacity to read bad reviews if you're trying to find good materials to add to the collection (rather than bad materials not to add). Given the vast quantity of books out there, I think it makes sense to look for the good ones than to exclude the bad ones. But that's just my take on it.
DeleteGreat prompt response! You did a good job outlining what works for you and using your work setting as examples for why you would or wouldn't get those titles for your library. You also got some good reactions from your classmates. Full points!
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting in reading your experiences in the purchasing of collections, as well as the tools utilized for such purchases. I definitely appreciate you finding titles that would fulfill a unique niche within the collections, keeping in mind there could be patrons looking for such titles. I find it interesting in skimming over the Amazon reviews too, which is something I do as well, as there have been far too many times that a poorly reviewed book was one of my favorite titles.
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