I've been Here at Book Readers Heaven since 2005 - 17 years this December! Wow, Time goes fast...
Prior to that time, I partnered on a book review site, Independent Professional Book Reviews and before that I worked as an editor, and all round publisher assistant at Rainbow's End Publishing Company. Both of these endeavors were with my former co-worker at West Virginia University, where I first started working in 1963. When Bettie R. Tucker left to join her husband, I moved into her position as Departmental Secretary. Then when she began her own publishing company, to publish her own, first book, I started working with her again...
I had reviewed books sporadically prior to that on various online sites as well as directly on book sites when I had read a book. When we started the Independent Review Site, we charged by the length of the book; specifically, we charged for the time to read the book, as opposed to actually charging a flat fee for a book review. It was about that time that the IRS started to pay attention to the growth of book sites on line, including for reviews. We were already keeping accounting books for our site but, for me, I came to a point of needing to merge my own activities aside from working for the IPReview site. I had also been working with authors--editing, proofreading, and just about anything that the writer needed done.
Full Disclosure: One of the reasons I had started to work on publishing, etc., was because the result of a reorganization done by a new Assistant VP, resulted in my no longer having any work to do! This was all tied in to various factors that I'll write about separately. For purposes of this post, I did work for, for instance, a professor who wanted to write a book and had all of her material, class handouts, etc., but did not have the time to merge and create a new draft document ready for publication.
Because she was a professor, I did her work on the job, in between anything that I was being asked to do. I successfully created the book for a final edit and we then had it published...
The key point was that since I was already been paid, I did not charge anybody with whom I was working at that time. Thus, I made the decision to stop working for the Review Site, and not charge for anything that I would be doing. This kept me legal--of course, most people, including myself, would not think it is legal to do other work on the job...however, I had, at that time, filed a grievance which went all the way to the Board of Regents, in my efforts to find another job to which I could transfer after the reorganization. And, yes, in my opinion, all of what happened was done on purpose, not necessarily just about me.
At that time, there were a number of women, new to being in high-level positions at the university. The Dean of Libraries, for instance, was forced to leave and other women were moved, although I didn't know the details as well as I did, since the Dean and I spent some social time together prior to her moving to another library position out-of-state. She was a Black woman, with excellent credentials, when she was hired...
Some of you might have recently heard about the Affirmative Action laws being looked at. Well, I was hired under that Law. I had been trained and promoted upward by my hiring boss. There were really no credentials that anybody new could bring in better than mine, unless they came from another university with a similar organizational structure. We had often been told by facilities planners from other universities, that they thought the structure that we had at WVU was the best and most productive that they had seen... But, as you know, the issue of power and to whom it has been delegated, is oftentimes affected by the particular individuals in any given hierarchical position....
In any event, I have been reviewing or in publishing for about 20 years now. When my health issues forced me to stop working, I stopped for a period, with a reduced schedule, as well as doing much physical therapy to regain my ability to conduct my day-to-day living needs...I never stopped reading, however, LOL...
During these years, I had come across a few issues with authors that caused me enough concern that I would have to think about how to approach the issue. One fairly recent one was related to a book which included all of the new testament...
From my standpoint, I indicated that I could not review the book--it was presented to me, as, you might call it, a manuscript... There were no pages, chapters, table of contents, glossary, index, etc. I can only guess, looking back on how badly the writer reacted to me, was that he had been harassed about what he was saying... While, for me, I barely read it--it was not worth my time... He threatened me, and wrote on book sites. I had felt, since the book was already being posted to sell, and I was involved, I felt I had to at least post something... I wrote that it was not a review... but since book sites such as Amazon, require that you give it a ranking, I posted as 1. In any event, I had to write to Amazon and get the buy off my back... I think I must had taken my notice down, but, you know what, I've tried and tried to find that book. I really wanted to read it! In fact, I had similar thoughts on what the purpose of the book was to be about... How sad... don't you think? I even suggested that the writer look at any other nonfiction book and do the work to get it ready to be read and I'd read it...
Soooo, why am I thinking about reviewing books today? Well, I've been reading a book for the last week or so, in between other things. The first word that comes to mind when I think about the content is "shocking..."
So, this morning, I started researching the author, which I normally do for non-fiction books, even using a bio to establish credentials. Indeed, so far, I gather that the book was award-winning... but there were other issues that bothered me personally.
At some point, I decided that if I considered myself a professional book reviewer and, indeed, had many writers providing feedback on what I've said, did it matter that the topic was inflammatory, totally unexpected, and that, it could be explosive if I reviewed the book at this particular time in history...
Given all the reasons to set it aside...
My inclination is to do a review as opposed to an opinion piece which I've been doing lately. By doing that, I would be providing facts from the book. Note that there is a full index embedded...so the research for all that is said has been documented and provided in the book... To me, this would mean that, even if there is a bias of the writer, as a journalist, it is being presented much like all the other books that I've been reading lately...
Asking for thoughts if so inclined?
GABixlerReviews
Note: this is being sent out without a final proof, so I can maybe get some feedback before I start, or not...
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