[As first published in Taking Notice, an article by Mary Hoffman (the editor of Armadillo) for issue 8.3.]
As someone who does actually select what to review and what not, let me just give you a few of my criteria:
- We will carry reviews of the ñbigî titles; it would be foolish not to.
- I am not influenced (I think) by publicity freebies.
- We won't carry reviews of books 2 and 3 of trilogies unless the first has had a very positive review and it looks as if the series is keeping up the standard.
- The number of our non-fiction reviews is limited by the number of reviewers on the panel willing to cover information titles.
- We don't review paperback editions of books that have previously been published in hardback, unless there has been some unaccountable oversight or a new edition has brought back into print something long unavailable.
- We don't review many series books because of lack of space.
- By and large, we avoid reviews of children's books by celebrities, unless we have discovered they are wonderful in their own right.
- We don't print knocking copy unless:
The book is greatly hyped and widely reviewed but is actually dreadful.
It is a poor book by a normally reliable author.