Thoughts about 2016

[james_davis_nicoll]

Should I have a quota for new books? That is, books released in 2016? That will skew what I review towards books from companies lavish with review copies (Tor, Orbit) and away from publishers who aren't free with review copies (S&S, for example).

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I've never had issues getting review copies from S and S via Edelweiss or NetGalley, though I don't mind ePub, which might not work for you?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Epub is fine but how do I get MSes from Edelweiss and Netgalley onto my Kobo?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Sideload via Calibre? I'm not that familiar with Kobo. Perhaps someone else has a better idea.

Anyway, the whole "request a DRC" thing is a little more tiresome than the old-school "get books in the mail," but it does have the advantage of not filling the house with ARCs.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Quota systems aren't illegal in Canada?

[julesjones]

It will help with flagging up new stuff that might worth hunting down to consider for Hugo nominations, so yes.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Yes, this.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

This is a good point. "James didn't hate it" is as good a starting point as any, and better than some.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

More significantly, it'll skew reviews towards the books companies think deserve a big marketing push, which are already going to be reviewed on io9 and SF Signal, get prominent placement on Amazon and Audible and in brick-and-mortar stores. On the bright side, publishers have been putting more force behind authors like Zen Cho, Ken Liu and N.K. Jemisin lately, but I'm still not fond of the big It Book that everyone is supposed to read and talk about because everyone else is reading and talking about it.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

A James Nicoll review will not always incline people to read the book, and the way it will cause it to be talked about may not be the way marketing would prefer. That said, the skew in what actually gets reviewed might be a problem.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

No. Please review what you like. I love the breadth of your reviews.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

James,

You have Free Will, use it!

[chrysostom476.livejournal.com]

Yes, but low - maybe 10-15%?

[tortoise.livejournal.com]

My (entirely selfish) preference would be that you not do this; your reviews are useful to me for highlighting older stuff that I might be interested in, and I have other pipelines that already seem to work pretty well for discovering new things...

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Given what others have said above me I wonder if there's a way to highlight Obscure New Books.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I vote for no. Given the drama around the last Hugo Awards, knowing more about new books is a good idea.