1/? Thread time now as I promised last week to talk here about the @brokenfrontier process for reviews consideration and what goes on behind the scenes. Obviously this much-read piece at BF is a very useful starting point... brokenfrontier.com/small-press-co… 
2/? ...but I want to be more transparent about what goes on behind the scenes too in regards to how we decide what to review and the steps involved.
3/? So step one... every weekend I curate a list of review opportunities from what we have been offered that week that I send out to the team. Selection for that list is in accordance with the ethos of the site and the kind of practice we look to shine a spotlight on.
4/? There are obvious things that can be immediately ignored - Comicsg*te books for example or, to give one recent example, a book containing transphobic cartoons.
5/? What I'm generally looking for from an aesthetic sensibility is work that does things that only comics can do, work that interrogates the boundaries of the form, work that experiments and toys with the narrative tools of sequential art...
6/? ...but equally important to us at @brokenfrontier is practice that promotes social justice, social outreach, diversity, inclusivity, activism and community. As we said in more depth in our recent team statement: brokenfrontier.com/brief-statemen…
7/? That means that a lot of the more obvious small press genre work (and I guess I'm talking super-heroes here) may not be as good a fit for us. Don't want to put anyone off submitting, and everyone should be making the comics they want to make...
8/? ...but as a site we want to show the world all the things comics *can* be, not the one thing the wider public erroneously believes they are limited to.
9/? So here's how that curated list to the BF team works. It's split into three sections once I've whittled down the offers into a more manageable number. The first section is our suggested priorities for the week based on our internal diversity and inclusivity plan.
10/? The second section is the wider new releases for the week. And the third section covers books already offered but yet to be picked up. After a month or so if there has been no take-up I will delete books that haven't been claimed.
11/? Monthly comics need to be claimed far quicker obviously and reviewed within 1-2 weeks but preferably within one.
12/? So your offered comics may well be on these lists for consideration without you realising. Which brings me to the next point...
13/? We sadly can't reply to every request for coverage or give individual feedback on why something wasn't reviewed. There just isn't the time. But that doesn't mean it hasn't been considered or offered to the team.
14/? As I said here last week, last Friday we were offered 57 books for review. That's nearly 10 times the number of reviews we published in the preceding week.
15/? Believe me when I say that there is so much excellent practice out there on the indie and self-published front that we feel so much guilt about not getting to.
16/? And don't be put off about not getting a review the first time. Keep submitting. Sometimes creators have submitted a few books before getting a review.
17/? Feel free to re-submit the same project (within reason!) but please be realistic as well. If we/I have promised something then remind me. I'm old. I forget things. And the number of communications we get is overwhelming at the best of times.
18/? This is the bit that I don't like to have to talk about but as we've had an instance of it again this week I need to talk briefly about it.
19/? Nobody is owed a review. Nobody is owed an interview. Nobody is owed crowdfunding coverage. The only thing we owe anyone is our honest and considered opinion on a project when we do agree to cover it.
20/? I know 99.9% of people submitting totally get that and are absolutely lovely about the limitations of a small operation/collective like BF.
21/? But if you're ever tempted to fire off an angry message or a belligerent tweet please step back a moment and think about how incredibly hard the BF team works to promote the small press world in particular and to champion emerging talent.
22/? So, to summarise, just because we don't get back to you it doesn't mean that your project hasn't been considered for coverage whether that be review, interview or feature.
23/? Keep plugging away, keep submitting and keep creating. And feel free to ask me any questions here about any of this. :-)
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