Thread by @Dr_C_Thompson

After 1.5 years of working as a #history #BookReview Editor, I have some thoughts about how this whole thing works.

Authors, I know you're eager to see reviews of your book (I am too), but there are a lot of factors that are hard to control... 1/🧵

First, book reviews don't happen without books. I can't send a book out for review if I don't receive it. I receive a lot of unsolicited books, which is great. I also request books from presses when I learn about them. Not all presses are super responsive. 2/

As an author, you need to be proactive. Make sure your press is sending out copies of your book. Contact book review editors to offer a copy, or to put us in touch with your press' PR person. 3/

And whenever possible, it needs to be a physical book. Reviewers will turn down book reviews if all that is available is an ebook/PDF.

(Honestly, I get it. It's an unpaid service obligation—a hard copy is literally the least a press can do.) 4/

But some presses have a no-hard-copy policy. If you are finishing a book and looking into presses, ask about what their policies are for review copies. Hard copies are much easier to get reviewers for, if that is something that matters to you. 5/

Second, just because I have a copy of a book doesn't mean I can get a review, or that the review will be happening anytime soon, especially right now. 6/

I currently have 35 books out with reviewers, which would be enough reviews for three issues.

The longest a book has been out is 2.5 years (we ask for a 90 day turnaround). All I can do is send reminders; I can't make the reviewers write faster. 7/

Sometimes reviewers send the books back instead, and then I have to start over. Sometimes, reviewers stop replying to my emails altogether.

If I can't get a replacement book (and a replacement reviewer), the review won't happen. And it sucks. 8/

I have another ~10 books that I am trying to place right now. For some of these I've been sending requests out for months. It's hard to find a reviewer right now (especially if you have an edited volume or a lot of blurbers, since that cuts down the pool of reviewers). 9/

It's great to have your book workshopped, and to get feedback from a lot of scholars. But this also limits the pool—I can't have a reviewer with a conflict of interest. Sometimes it takes a long list before I find someone. 10/

It's also an area-specific thing; I have lots of potential reviewers for some topics, but very few for other topics. It can be hard to find the right people when the book is far outside of my wheelhouse. 11/

Finally, for the book writers AND the book review writers, the final frustration: we have a backlog, which means you could submit your review today and it might not appear for a year. 12/

This sucks for the people with books who need reviews for P&T or whatever else. But it also sucks for the reviewers who want that CV line, and this delay makes it that much harder to get people to agree to write reviews, which slows everything down. 13/

But because it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years to receive a review, we can't predict how long it will take to get reviews for an issue. So the backlog is essential for getting reviews in print. 14/

I'm brainstorming ways to ameliorate some of these problems, but know that I am familiar with the frustrations on all sides.

If you have suggestions, let me hear them. And please sign up to be a JHMAS reviewer! 15/15
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