Jan is Jan Fields, moderator of this interview/workshop, and Web Editor of the ICL Web Site. Green shows names or usernames of people and the questions they asked of our speaker.

Jan: Okay, let me welcome everyone to tonight's chat "WRITE REVIEWS, IT PAYS" with Carol-Ann Hoyte.

Jan: Let me share a little about tonight's guest speaker -- Carol-Ann Hoyte works part-time as an assistant librarian in two private schools. She is currently serving her seventh year as the Quebec regional coordinator for TD Canadian Children's Book Week, Canada's largest children's literature event. Since 2002, she has written about children's literature and reviewed more than 100 children's books for various publications. Carol-Ann has also served two terms on the jury for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award. As of February 2008, she has started writing children's poetry. She is currently working on breaking into writing children's non-fiction for the educational market. Carol-Ann lives in Montreal, QC.

Jan: Welcome, Carol-Ann!

Carol-Ann: Good evening, Jan and fellow participants.

Jan: I am delighted that we're talking about reviews tonight. I love writing reviews -- how did you get started in it?

Carol-Ann: I have a BA in Journalism and have a personal and professional passion for children's literature so reviewing children's books just seem like a logical and ideal way to blend these two things.

Jan: Do you have any favorite types of books you like to review?

Carol-Ann: I love poetry books, non-fiction, and picture books and reviewing all of these types of kidlit books.

Carol-Ann: In the case of writing for a publication like School Library Journal [http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/], it only accepts individuals who are working as school library professionals as reviewers. But in the case of U.S. publications like VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) [http://www.voya.com/], KLIATT, [http://hometown.aol.com/kliatt/index.html] and Children's Comprehensive Database, [http://www.childrenslit.com/] you don't need to have special qualifications to review. I would say that from what I have seen several of those reviewing children's books are bookstore employees, teachers, library professionals, and sometimes the occasional children's book author.

Jan: When you sit down to write a review, what kinds of goals do you have? What are you hoping to do with a review?

Carol-Ann: I hope to give the person reading the review a sense of what the book is about (a summary), how it differs or might be unique to other books written on the same topic if it is a non-fiction book, what its strengths/weaknesses are, what type of audience it might appeal to, etc. For example, if I am reviewing a non-fiction book on dinosaurs, library professionals will want to know how this book differs from all of the other dinosaur books she might already have in her collection. Essentially, I am trying to give someone who hasn't seen or read a book a sense of what the book is about and whether she is interested in investigating it further in hand or ordering it.

Jan: Do you have a specific system -- like focusing on strengths first then weaknesses, or do you just adapt to each book?

Carol-Ann: Not really. There are not always weaknesses involved. By the way, if you are mentioning a minor weakness you try to keep your discussion of it brief so that it doesn't come off to the reader as being a bigger problem than it really is. One thing that I would like to say before I forget is that a common problem of children's book reviews is that they consist mainly of a long summary and not much else.

Jan: I've heard writers complain about that too -- how some reviewers give away the whole plot in the summary rather than really reviewing it.

Jan: So, are you ever constrained by the format of the publication you're writing for -- where they have a specific format?

Carol-Ann: The standard constraint is length of the review. For one publication, the recommended length of the review of 200 words. There's another publication for which I reviewed wanted reviews of 75 to 150 words as it ran reviews of three books on one page. Here's a newsflash, folks but there is only so much you can include in 75 to 150 words about a book. Montreal Review of Books wanted me to review eight or nine titles for the Children's Literature Page which I use to write for them. They could fit about 1000 or 1100 words on the page so the reviews ended up being about 100 words each and the featured book would be around 150 to 200 words.

Jan: Being able to write concisely would certainly be an advantage to a reviewer -- do you think it's helped you become a more concise brisk writer?

Carol-Ann: Definitely. If reviewing books doesn't help you become a more concise writer, I don't know what can. It's true that some publications for adults that reviews might run 500 words or longer but from my experience I would say that the average children's book reviews run around 250 words or slightly less.

Jan: What other benefits do you think you've gotten from being a book reviewer?

Carol-Ann: I have obtained free children's books for my personal collection or to give as gifts or donations to schools and libraries. It has allowed me to become known to individuals in my profession and related fields. It has shown employers/colleagues my interest in my profession beyond my workplace. It has lead me to paid writing work (the truth is most children's book reviewing or book reviewing in general is unpaid). It has offered me free entertainment while improving the important skill of writing.

Carol-Ann: When I started out reviewing children's book reviews, I wrote for The Five Owls (now defunct sadly), Children's Literature Comprehensive Database, KLIATT, ResourceLinks (Canada) [http://www.resourcelinks.ca/], and Canadian Children's Book Review Annual. None of these were paying gigs but I wrote for a short time, perhaps six months or so, just to get the experience. Once I had the reviews I had written for these publications, I approached three that did pay and wrote for these three paying publications for five years before I decided to move on to other projects. If you want to do this to get paid, I highly recommend looking perhaps at the adult book reviewing market. One way you can get paid for your writing is to use the book reviews which you have written for free to land paying writing (non book reviewing) work. This is a good strategy because then the paying markets can see that you can write and have had your work published.

Carol-Ann: To be honest I am not really sure. Let me tell you about something that happened to me just this past weekend. I bought the latest book (non-fiction title) from a Montreal children's book author. On the back of the book, there were two-line excerpts from three different reviews of a previous book of the author's. One of the excerpts was of a review of had written for Montreal Review of Books [http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/]. I wasn't approached but I am guessing that the publisher of the book I had reviewed might have contacted the publication to see if it was okay. I think the best thing to do for an author or publisher would be to contact the publication in which the review appeared to see how much of a review s/he is allowed to quote whether it be on a website on the back of a book or what have you.

Jan: So, Carol-Ann, do you ever get authors writing to argue with you about a review?

Carol-Ann: No, I have never encountered authors writing to argue with me about a review I have written. The truth is is that authors may not see all or any of the reviews of their books. I know that publicists working at the publishing house may track review coverage of the books written by its authors and send the reviews it has located on to the authors but this is not done in all cases as it would depend on the size of the publicity department and other factors.

Carol-Ann: Mind you, I did have an author write me to say how please someone got what she was trying to do in her book. I had made a comment about the balance of competitive versus cooperactive activities in her book and she appreciated the comment and said that it was a good point.

Carol-Ann: Jackie, one place you might try is Midwest Book Review [http://www.midwestbookreview.com/]. Another person that I recommend you contact is Suzanne Lieurance. She's in Kansas City, MO and she hosts a Internet radio show called Book Bites for Kids [http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bookbitesforkids] weekdays at 2 p.m. Central Time. If I think of any other places before the chat is over, I will mention them. Good luck!

Jan: I know myshelf.com also accepts kids book for review.

Carol-Ann: : No, I have never had to give a book a poor review. I don't believe there is much point is expending energy, effort, and time doing that. I remember there was one time when three self-published books were submitted to be considered for review for Montreal Review of Books. The editor really wanted me to give each of these books a few lines mention as she felt that these books weren't likely to get much or if any coverage. I was willing to risk my name and journalistic responsibility/integrity by endorsing these books so here is what I did: I briefly described the plot of each book and pointed out which one was the strongest out of the lot. If you receive a book to review and you really can't feel that you can give a fair, balanced, and positive, I recommend that you let the editor know and he or she can reassign it to someone else.

Carol-Ann: awb, what I would do in your case is review one or two books that you own or have borrowed from the library and send those as writing samples.

Carol-Ann: The thing is is that you don't necessarily have to submit writing samples when approaching a children's book reviewing publication. What often happens is that you have a brief form to complete where you would indicate what types of books you would be interested in reviewing (ie. fiction, nonfiction (ie. science, biography, nature, geography, etc.), folk and fairy tales) might also indicate how many books you would like to review per issue or per year. When the editor of the publication gets books that match your tastes, then s/he would send them your way.

Jan: Do you ever (or often) review the same book for more than one venue? Do you ever sell a reprint of the exact same review?

Carol-Ann: No. It isn't really looked upon favourably to review the same book for one than one publication.

Jan: Ok, now I happen to know our audience is really looking for specific places...so, you'd suggest starting with reviewing for free. Can you name some places that might be new reviewer friendly?

Carol-Ann: Multicultural Review [http://www.mcreview.com/] is a good place for which to review children's books. They don't pay for its reviews but it does pay for its articles. So after you have written a handful of children's book reviews for the publication you might want to consider pitching an idea for an article.

Carol-Ann: Two other publications I would recommend are VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) and KLIATT which both focus on young adult books. Multicultural Review, which I just mentioned, is also a good place -- it covers the whole age range from elementary to high school.

Carol-Ann: Multicultural Review, KLIATT, and VOYA are all print markets and they all have websites. Children's Literature Comprehensive Database exists only electronically and that is another place that newbie reviewers might want to check out.

Carol-Ann: For the page of 8-10 reviews for the Montreal Review of Books children's literature page, I earned $170.50 for the whole page. This amount included a small amount which cover the publication's electronic posting of my reviews on its website. If you visit the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec's website, click on Montreal Review of Books. If you click on any of issues from 2002-2007, you can read some of the children's book reviews I have written for that publication. For Canadian Children's Book News, I am paid $40 per review. For the reviews I wrote for Canadian Bookseller, when I ended my reviewing for that publication, I was up to $35 at last per review. Please note that all of these amounts are in Canadian dollars.

Jan: what are some other "common things" we should watch for...things we should remember as reviewers?

Carol-Ann: A good thing to remember is, according to Phyllis K. Kennemer, a strong well-written review should consist of three components: descriptive content, analytical content, and sociological content. Descriptive content refers to objective statements about the characters, plot, theme, or illustrations. Analytical content refers to statements about literary and artistic elements including evaluation, comparison, and mention of contributions to the field. Sociological content refers to judgments based on nonliterary considerations such as potential controversial elements or predictions about popularity. This information comes from Kathleen T. Horning's book. I know that no one asked specifically about this but it is information that I wanted to make sure to pass on before we were finished tonight.

Carol-Ann: If you want to find strong examples of children's book reviewing, I strongly recommend that you look for children's book reviews written by Roger Sutton, Betsy Hearne, Ilene Cooper, and Zena Sutherland. These are individuals considered to be legendary in the field of children's literature. For more current individuals, I would recommend Anita Silvey, Kathleen Odean, and Kathleen Horning.

Carol-Ann: By the way, Kathleen T. Horning wrote a book called From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books (HarperCollins, 1997). If you are serious about children's book reviewing, I highly recommend that you purchase this book.

Carol-Ann: You can think of a book review as having an anatomy: bibliographic data (factual information used to locate a book), summary, age range of target audience, comparison to other books in its genre or that deal with the same or similar subject, potential appeal, and classroom/library use.

Jan: So, do you have anymore things "not to do" -- pitfalls for reviewers to avoid?

Carol-Ann: Well, in a round-up (many books covered) article about new children's books, the writer of the piece included mention of a couple of his books. Very tacky. It would have been okay if he had listed his books in the list of books that weren't mentioned in the artice that followed it. Don't ever review a relative's or friend's book -- no matter how objective you think you can be, you can't because you are just too close to the person who has written the book.

Jan: If you think of a review as serving the reader...like any nonfiction article, what do you think the reader most wants to know? Maybe that's just unknowable, as readers may approach it differently. I probably overthink things.

Carol-Ann: I think if you reviewing children's books for a publication geared to teachers and/or librarians, this audience is very interested in how the book can be used with children, incorporated into curriculum, or used in library programming such as storytime.

Carol-Ann: Canadian Children's Book News, published by the Canadian Children's Book Centre, is going to only work with writers living in Canada (not surprising when you consider the name of the publication and organization publishing it). Canadian Bookseller only has one person who reviews for them now since I have left. And Montreal Review of Books only has one person who reviews for them. So in a roundabout way, I would say the answer to your question is yes.

Jan: I'll see if I can scout up more paying book review venues to share with everyone. I believe HORNBOOK pays for reviews -- though that is definitely not a beginners market, but I have seen reviews by people who weren't librarians. Sometimes children's magazines will pay for reviews (Discovery Girls, for example) though they generally look for a "staff reviewer" and have that person basically handle everything. You can also sometimes sell individual reviews to other magazines -- check their guidelines.

Jan: Okay, you've given us a lot of great stuff -- are there any other things you want to share? Questions I should have asked but didn't? you want to share.

Carol-Ann: There are different processes to reviewing children's books. In most cases, you will be sent new current books to review (this has been mainly my experience). In the case of Canadian Bookseller, I got to choose whichever books I wished to cover. This was a great opportunity because it gave me the opportunity to focus on books that may have been a little bit less current, were unique, but might get missed because they were published by small presses.

Carol-Ann: Another resource: Write a Book Review with Rodman Philbrick (http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/bookrev/index.htm). I would say it is more geared to kids but I find sometimes that materials geared to children can cut to the chase and do a great job at breaking things down.

Carol-Ann: Here is an exercise that Kathleen Horning describes in her book that participants can try to make sure that their reviews have a bit of each of the three types of content I mentioned earlier. Take a sheet of paper, divide it into three parts and label the parts descriptive, analytical, and sociological. Using the notes that you have taken after and/or during reading the book, make up a list of all the points you would like to include in your review, placing each one into its respective category.

Jan: Sounds good, very visual. After doing that, then how do you condense it into 150 words? You must have to discard some really good comments sometimes to make the word count cut.

Carol-Ann: I have never used this technique myself but it sounds like a good one to use for people just started out as reviewers. When it comes to length of reviews, you have to be ruthless. There is no room for words like "good", "nice" or "interesting" -- these words are overused in conversation which is fine in oral communication as we can use as many words as we want. But in writing reviews, they take up valuable space and don't advance what you are trying to do and/or say.

Carol-Ann: I didn't know of Kathleen Horning's book when I started out as a reviewer. I only discovered it after I had been reviewing for about a year or two.

Jan: Okay, time is winding down...any closing wisdom for us? Or shall I simply gush on your for being our guest? I do like to gush.

Carol-Ann: I just thought of something. It wouldn't hurt for chat participants to check out Parenting Publications of America's website [http://www.parentingpublications.org]. They could find a parenting publication in their area and see if they run reviews of children's books. At the very least, they would be likely to run reviews of parenting books and I would say that would be still a good starting point and related to reviewing children's books.

Jan: Oh, right. I actually know of some folks trying to pitch review columns to PPA magazines...and that doesn't work so well. But they do often accept individual reviews which give you a publishing credit and experience. And sometimes money...sometimes not.

Carol-Ann: People should pursue children's book reviewing because they really love children's books and they want to develop, maintain, and/or improve their writing. It is a great way to get free children's book and amass clips that could lead to paid writing work. That's what happened to me.

Jan: Now, are your fingers are twisty and tired? You typed a lot.

Carol-Ann: Yeah, I did type quite a bit but it was fun and I enjoyed myself. Hey, I'm a writer -- I'm used to typing obscene amounts of text for extended periods of time.

Carol-Ann: You are most welcome.

Jan: Thank you Carol-Ann, I really appreciate this chat. You've given us a ton to think about so that if we do pursue reviews, we can do it with a plan. And do some good ones. You're just super for sharing with us.

Carol-Ann: I have enjoyed this opportunity immensely. Thanks for hosting me as this evening's guest.

Jan: Thank you again, Carol-Ann Hoyte...reviewer extraordinaire and thanks to everyone who came tonight for chat. It's no fun without an audience.

Carol-Ann: I invite anyone who participated in tonight's chat or who reads the transcript of it later on to email me at kidlitfan1972@yahoo.ca to let me know how their foray into children's book reviewing goes.

Jan: Hey thanks, we will -- for sure. So, good night everyone -- thanks again for sharing your evening with us. Catch y'all next month. We'll have editor Harold Underdown on May 22nd.