No, I think that sounds about right. If the benefit is to the author in the long term, it's also to the agent, and so falls squarely to them (and, of course, the author!).

I've spent countless hours, probably more than you mentioned, trying to gain reviews for my book. I've always seen my success in doing so as a result for the current book, but also as a foundation for future books. I think you are right, your role is not to foster my future as an author, that is my role.

Because of this, I don't think it was a waste of my time. Though I agree, having spent the hours and money myself, that it may be a waste of your time. That said, having gained these reviews for Snowbooks, at minimum cost to yourselves, it still seems like they would at least bolster your promotional materials. Or am I wrong?

Yes, they've bolstered our promotional materials and as I say we still try to get as many reviews as possible - and you have been exceptionally hardworking in getting some amazing reviews yourself. Neither the reviews you've garnered nor the reviews we get have affected sales, though - sales came through paying to be in retailer promotions. Without the promotions, we wouldn't sell any books, except for the four colour non fiction which attracts a searcher, not a browser in the shops.

I realise an error (or at least a lack of clarity) in my post, though - when I say reviews, I'm thinking of newspapers - broadsheets and the like. I am certainly not thinking about blogger reviews or reviews in the very specialist press like SFX and the Historical Novels Review. Those *do* affect sales - although, again, not in numbers sufficient to make it the only piece of actvity we can do. Retailer promotions win hands down for effectiveness. But think of the effect that DGR et al's reviews had around Needle in the Blood last year - I am sure that Lynne's reviews sold way more than the cost of sending her a copy, and so personal and friendly to deal with too, compared to many of her professional counterparts.

I think you are right too. Even from a smaller press perspective, where the effects of the publicity a review gives, you would expect to be felt more, there still seems to be little or no benefit in terms of sales.

I've always found it curious that a music industry 'advance' differs so much from a book publishing one.

A musician signing a 'million dollar record deal' will soon find out that the million dollars will be spent on the recording, manufacture, promotion and distribution of their work - and of course PR in the form of plugging and free copies to the trade.

In effect their advance is being spent on their behalf, and if sales don't earn the advance out they will often find themselves owing the record company the difference (though to be fair they rarely try to collect).

In book publishing it is of course different. An advance on royalties is simply that.

Perhaps though, there is a case for offering authors an advance that includes an amount equal to the money spent on obtaining reviews as part of the package, and they could choose to invest some of it in review copies if they feel it is worth it for their long-term careers, or if they don't they can keep the money.

For the publisher it would make little difference (although like the music industry you'd see more stories of big-number-advances appearing in the trade press), but it would be curious to see the advice of agents to their clients. Would they take the 10% of the review-copy-money, or invest themselves in their clients futures by suggesting it is spent on getting reviews...

What gets my goat is when broadsheets give over a whole page to a book the reviewer doesn't like, i.e. there's no recommendation, but the book gets the publicity just the same. Makes it so obvious that the review has been paid for, and another way in which established authors maintain their supremacy whether or not the quality is maintained (oops, I fel a sour grapes day coming on. Must have been that bad round of golf!) Alison

I think your clarification is important, Em, because some blogs have such a dedicated readership that a book recommended thereon is bound to shift a few more copies.

But reviews have other merits too: customer reviews on e.g. Amazon help potential readers get a sense of what a book is really about. And a book featured on the top spot of the Amazon homepage always used to sell (when I worked there for the first 5 years in the UK "branch") a helluva lot more copies than it would have done without that placing. (Waterstone's tables and windows do the same -- but the "placing" and the "reviewing" go hand in hand online.)

And reviews in the Broadsheets? Well, they bring mostly already big books from big publishers that will sell well anyway to an even wider audience. But, perhaps more importantly, they help maintain a wider literary culture. Big book buyers tend to be interested in a very wide range of books and book-related "conversation" -- it sustains them. And sustains an interest in books which trickles downs in impossible to define ways.

Reviews have, then, an importance beyond sales that, in a roundabout way, sustains sales.

Interesting comments, wise Mark. But...

- Nowadays you pay for placement on Amazon's homepage. Nowt to do with reviews.

- Maybe when I'm very rich, or rich, or just above borderline poor, will your last point make me happy. For small publishers, though, sustaining the industry and the market is not our aim. We've got our hands full sustaining ourselves. Short termist, yes, but true.

Ooh, and I meant to say that endorsements are often -- though most certainly not always -- themselves pulled from reviews ...

Of course small publishers like you have your hands full sustaining yourselves -- and god bless ya for doing it -- but that wider literary culture that I was talking about is sustaining readers who are, in turn, sustaining you ...

D'oh! And I also meant to say ... none of this argues against your point that it could be the agent's job to send out review copies ...

Actually, I often receive review copies direct from authors who feel that their agents/publishers aren't doing enough for then ...

Em, I wish my agents took 10%... heh.

It's an interesting notion that a career agent should look at that side of the equation - from my side, my agents have tended to have a minimalistic role, contract negotiation, getting bigger advances, chasing late payments etc, and occassionally gee me up when I am feeling like I can't string together main and subjunctive clauses into a coherent sentence...

As to reviews, I've never seen much of a bump from glowing reviews, but I've seen a slump based on articulate and cogent poor reviews. I get the notion of it being for our egos - when I was mentioned last month in the Times I was bouncing around the house, I mean being seen inside the genre is fine and good, but being noticed, even as only 3 or 4 sentences in the tv section Outside the Box is going to be seen by a lot of people... not remembered, but seen (ahem). Anyway, I have got to the stage now where I don't look for reviews, and I know a lot of writers who actively don't look for them now and consider them a necessary evil, because, as you so, that element of hope exists.

Anyway, I suspect this post was buried away in the dead pixels of cyberspace, but I figured I'd drop by and say hi.

do you pay advance to your new authors