Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Time for an on-line NZ book magazine


In recent years the amount of column space devoted by the print media in NZ to book reviews has fallen dramatically and as a result the chances of getting your book reviewed have fallen. And even when they are reviewed it is often not by someone interested in being insightful and objective; too often it is instead a chance for the 'reviewer' to show how conceited and egoistical they are. There are some particularly bad examples, but for now we are not going to name names!
One answer to this problem is to do what Danish publishers have done and create an on-line book magazine, the first issue of which is here.
As well as articles about each book, authors can put audio and video clips on the page for that book, and there are plenty of nice pictures.
Individual publishers and authors here have their own blogs (like this one), but it wouldn't replace them and being a showcase for the industry as a whole would attract a much greater following from the book buying public.

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