Reviewing Site Finds
Discovered two interesting review sites this week that restore dignity to the deserving among the ranks of unpublished or POD published writers, while exercising standards and discrimination. If the future of publishing is for weeding to take place via post-publication selection, rather than via pre-publishing screening, then people like POD-girl and Torgo of Honest Critiques may be the avant-garde of a new phenomenon. (If I was a betting animal, my money would go on "some of each" for the future of publishing. That is, traditional publishing will remain a major player but there will be increasing scope for alternative routes to respectability.)
- POD-dy Mouth POD-girl is a published author who started reading POD books in quest of the ultimate bad novel...and was surprised to discover some good ones. Her blog is devoted to giving those unexpected jewels more exposure.
- Honest Critiques Discovered by my friend Virginia O'Dine, who is a member of the NorSpec Writers Group in which I take part, this site reviews whatever authors wish to send in, for good or ill.
It is a testament to the power of Marie Jakober's Sandinista, that I remember it so well, years after reading it for the first time. It made me miss a bus. I was visiting Alison Sinclair, in Calgary, at the time. Never good at navigating, my wanderings landed me in a fast food restaurant, about noon, where I settled down to read after reassuring myself that I knew which bus to catch, when, in order to get back to Alison's apartment that night. But I became so engrossed in Sandinista that I failed to look up until I finished the last page, hours later. I had not even noticed the young man sweeping up around me with a hopeful air of expectation that I might leave.