Aren't most book reviews effectively marketing for the book?

Are the book publishers not willing to fund the AP reviews, or the AP doesn't want to be in that business?

Also, I have read some NY book reviews that seem to double as marketing for the guest reviewer's own book or brand. If we go full MBA on this, all these parties could be paying to play. Is some journalistic ethics wall between business and editorial leaving money on the table?

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throwup238 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

In most cases yes, but the Associated Press makes its money mostly through members fees that scale based on circulation size and in return the members get to syndicate AP content so the incentives are better aligned towards editorial integrity. The AP has strict guidelines against allowing outside organizations to influence their reporting (FWIW).

Publishers and PR firms can send advanced copies but they can’t pay for one of AP’s independent critics for a submarine article.

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TheJoeMan 5 days ago | parent [-]

So by extension, the members don't desire syndicated free reviews from AP but would rather sell those reviews? That would mean this article from AP is saying is that there is low demand for editorially integrous book reviews and not book reviews in general.

	▲	throwup238 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The major news orgs like NYT, WaPo, etc usually have their own critics and they syndicate their content to smaller papers so they’re usually competing with the AP. The smaller papers don't have their own critics at all but most syndicate from the bigger papers and the ones that specialize more in non-factual content like Tribune Content Agency and Creators Syndicate. I think this is just AP cutting the red headed step child because they don’t produce much other opinion content, instead focusing on analysis and factual reporting, so everyone goes to another source that has more depth in their book reviews.

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slg 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Book publishers directly funding the reviews is a conflict of interest.

Part of the problem with the ongoing death of professional criticism is that you could reasonably expect a professional critic and their employer to both have some sort of ethical code regarding how the job should be performed. That simply isn't the case with random amateur critics on the internet.

	▲	jgalt212 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sort of like bond issuers paying for credit credit rating. Oh, wait...

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Are the book publishers not willing to fund the AP reviews

I'm pretty sure that would be illegal.

Yes, what you say might effectively be true in some cases, but they have to be sneakier/more indirect than that. Straight up paying people for reviews probably crosses the line into illegal advertising.