By popular request ...
Chance asked:
Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?
The second "you" refers to sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is:
"As of tomorrow [now today], in 2007 Strange Horizons will have published 148 reviews (of 144 different things, due to "two views" pieces and other overlap) by 53 reviewers. Of the reviewers, 29 (55%) are men and 24 (45%) are women. That's where the good news ends. The 29 men account for 92 (62%) of the reviews, while the 24 women account for 54 (38%) of the reviews. Worse, of the 130 reviews of books (88% of all reviews), 93 (72%) are books by men and 37 (28%) are books by women.
I can tell you that this last figure roughly reflects the proportions of books we receive. At the moment, in on my list of books-we-have-that-I-would-in-principle-like-to-get-reviewed-sometime, there are 26 books; 6 (23%) are by women and 20 (77%) are by men. I haven't tried to count to see how this reflects sf publishing in general, though I'd love to know. I also haven't counted to see how SH compares to other reviews venues."
jamiam said:
Maybe you could get someone who prefers reading women/authors of color/what-have-you to occasionally shoot you a list of the stuff they'd like to see reviewed? And use that to supplement your own list?
All recommendations are always welcomed. (Several people do, in fact, already send me recommendations, although not on a formal/scheduled basis.) I try to chase up pretty much every book by a woman or author of colour on any given Locus list of forthcoming books; I note that the current list is about 22% such books (38 of 173 -- this is a quick count, so I would expect to be out by a few), and that I've already commissioned (or published) reviews of about a third of them. I also note that I've commissioned about half a dozen reviews of relevant books not on the Locus list, and that these tend to be YA books or books from non-genre publishers.
I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks", where we publish several reviews of books by the same writer; previous author-focused feature weeks have been for John Crowley, Justina Robson, and James Tiptree Jr. (Not that I'm short of ideas, of course ...) The major criterion is that the author should have a new book coming out on which to hang the week. Preferably their other books should be in print, so that I can get them for reviewers -- although Aegypt isn't all in print, so that's not a fixed rule.
Any other questions?
Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?
The second "you" refers to sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is:
"As of tomorrow [now today], in 2007 Strange Horizons will have published 148 reviews (of 144 different things, due to "two views" pieces and other overlap) by 53 reviewers. Of the reviewers, 29 (55%) are men and 24 (45%) are women. That's where the good news ends. The 29 men account for 92 (62%) of the reviews, while the 24 women account for 54 (38%) of the reviews. Worse, of the 130 reviews of books (88% of all reviews), 93 (72%) are books by men and 37 (28%) are books by women.
I can tell you that this last figure roughly reflects the proportions of books we receive. At the moment, in on my list of books-we-have-that-I-would-in-principle-like-to-get-reviewed-sometime, there are 26 books; 6 (23%) are by women and 20 (77%) are by men. I haven't tried to count to see how this reflects sf publishing in general, though I'd love to know. I also haven't counted to see how SH compares to other reviews venues."
jamiam said:
Maybe you could get someone who prefers reading women/authors of color/what-have-you to occasionally shoot you a list of the stuff they'd like to see reviewed? And use that to supplement your own list?
All recommendations are always welcomed. (Several people do, in fact, already send me recommendations, although not on a formal/scheduled basis.) I try to chase up pretty much every book by a woman or author of colour on any given Locus list of forthcoming books; I note that the current list is about 22% such books (38 of 173 -- this is a quick count, so I would expect to be out by a few), and that I've already commissioned (or published) reviews of about a third of them. I also note that I've commissioned about half a dozen reviews of relevant books not on the Locus list, and that these tend to be YA books or books from non-genre publishers.
I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks", where we publish several reviews of books by the same writer; previous author-focused feature weeks have been for John Crowley, Justina Robson, and James Tiptree Jr. (Not that I'm short of ideas, of course ...) The major criterion is that the author should have a new book coming out on which to hang the week. Preferably their other books should be in print, so that I can get them for reviewers -- although Aegypt isn't all in print, so that's not a fixed rule.
Any other questions?