E-books are still rare birds. Reviews are even rarer, especially in the traditional press.
But starting in January 2000, ForeWord Magazine will contain e-book reviews as a regular part of the magazine's editorial content.
"We're open for business for e-publishers," said editor in chief Mardi Link. "Other trade magazines will have no choice but to follow our lead, if they want to serve their subscribers."
Link's own fascination with how well technology and literature can get along prompted her decision.
So far, only online review sites have consistently covered e-books. Print publications have reviewed an e-book here and there but none have made a commitment to covering them on a regular basis the way ForeWord will.
"E-books are such a new technology that the potential audience is too small to attract the commercial advertisers and subscribers to support the mainstream review publications," said Jim Cox, founder of the Midwest Book Review. Cox has a column called "The E-Book Shelf."
Last year, The London Sunday Times Literary Supplement reviewed an e-book, The Angels of Russia by Patricia le Roy, published by Online Originals. The reviewer, Professor John Sutherland, head of English at University College London, liked the novel so much he nominated it for the Booker Prize.
"Since then, we have had almost no luck obtaining conventional media reviews of our e-books," said publisher David Gettman,
Jeff Zaleski, editor at large of the largest industry magazine, Publisher's Weekly, is "skeptically excited about this new form."
PW ran its first e-book review in May. It was The Mozart Code by Dick Adler, published by Hard Shell Word Factory.
While PW doesn't have any plans to review e-books as a matter of course, Zaleski said he expects to be finding more worth his time. "Our commitment is to review the books that our readers need to know about. As e-books become more relevant, we'll be reviewing more of them."
Zaleski did have some e-news of his own, however.
"Publisher's Weekly just accepted electronic galleys for the first time." This could be a major boon for publishers who must ship hundreds of these cumbersome bound books to various review sources.
In fact it will be an even bigger boon to the small presses. "Galleys are always a major expense as well as a crapshoot, especially with small presses, when major review media still automatically reject us," said Lisa Rogak of Williams Hill Publishing.
Link sees every electronic step as a step in the right direction. "The Internet is such a perfect invention for publishing, and yet publishing is one of the least technologically adept industries. What irony!" she said.
ForeWord, which reviews 10 percent of the 6,000 books submitted each year, will review at least five e-books an issue, up to 20 in the near future. The first three reviews in January's ForeWord will be Threading the Needle, Cuckoo, and Prometheus in Bondage.
Microsoft's recent announcement that it will offer over US$100,000 a year in awards for excellence in e-books at the Frankfurt E-book Festival did not influence ForeWord's editorial decision, Link said. "We had already decided to review e-books when the announcement was made, but it was an indicator that this is where part of the book business is headed," she said.
E-book publishers are taking heart from this recent decision, said Bonnee Pierson, senior editor and partner of Dreams Unlimited.
"This will help prove our books are just as good as anything they'll find on the shelf."
M.J. Rose has published excerpts of a book online.
