I read a great deal and I have found that no matter how bad a book is, somewhere on the cover will be a Kirkus Review of how good it is.
It has actually gotten to the point that if I find a Kirkus Review on the book cover, I know not to buy that book even if it is by one of my favorite authors because the publishers couldn’t find any other positive reviews to put on the cover.
My question is: Does Kirkus Reviews sell their reviews to the publishers , the authors, the author’s press agents or whomever? Or are they just incredibly nice people who are incapable of saying critical things about any book ever written no matter how bad it is?
It’s pretty much just another source for librarians to use to see what new books are out.
That said, I’ve never seen a physical copy. I’ve just seen Kirkus Reviews attached to records (either in paper or online) of books I was trying to order.
I’ve seen some negative reviews from them, but not many. If you see a review from “Publisher’s Weekly” you can pretty much ignore that for objectivity.
BobT’s right. It’s primarily a source for librarians.
That said, I’ve always found KIRKUS to be rather hard on authors. Most book editors are of the same opinion. “We got a lousy KIRKUS.” “Yeah, well, what did you expect from those slimebuckets?”
A standard joke around the office had to do with KIRKUS’ statement that any given book was “not up to the author’s usual standards,” even when they’d done nothing but slam him in the past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY is usually nicer. These two publications, plus (to a lesser degree) LIBRARY JOURNAL and BOOKLIST, constitute what you hear about as “Advance Reviews,” or reviews before publication, as in “Murdley Gurdson’s latest novel got FAHBULOUS advance reviews!!!”
From talking with some mystery authors – I’m a book reviewer and unpubbed novelist – Kirkus has a lousy reputation that goes beyond the usual bitching I’ve heard. For whatever reason, they can be unreasonably harsh on books that otherwise did not merit the treatment.
Ed McBain used an incest theme in a novel of his about ten years back, and KIRKUS sniffed that he “seems obsessed with incest.” This is a guy who’s written well over a hundred novels, many of which do not feature incest.
He was so pissed off that he insists, to this day, that his advance galleys NOT be sent to KIRKUS. Publicists complain that this might hurt his sales, but he’s adamant.