How to Freelance Book Reviews and Why You Should
Why negative reviews and soft coverage are both valid, what a pitch can do beyond securing us work, and why a little "randomness" in a review can be healthy
Listen. We all read books (sometimes) and have opinions on them to boot. I’ve seen you all post those hot takes on Twitter, alright?! But why toss those pearls into the void—for free no less—when so many publications would pay for them?
Yes, I’m talking about book reviews. Or “criticism,” to put a fancy pince-nez on it.
And while reviews are worth some cash, they also help build a following and connect us to editors and readers. They sharpen our minds and shape conversation in our communities, and, by doing so, keep our ecosystems healthy. By spotlighting releases that intrigue us—especially those from smaller presses without a huge marketing budget—we push for more of what we want. And less of what we don’t.
(And isn’t it delicious to see a harmful book get panned? Just a little?)
In July, I got essayist, poet, and critic Terry Nguyen on the phone to learn more about the world of reviews.
Today we’re unpacking:
Why we should challenge our gut instincts
Why negative reviews and soft coverage are both valid
What a pitch can do beyond securing us work
Why it’s good to review books from writers no longer around 🪦
Why a little “randomness” in a review can be healthy
Meet your guide, Terry: Terry Nguyễn is an essayist, critic, and poet from Garden Grove, CA. She writes Vague Blue, a critical essay-in-newsletters, and has recent publications in The Nation, The Believer, Dirt, Still Alive Magazine, and Brooklyn Rail.
Be Curious but Skeptical
What makes a person want to be a critic at all? Do they like to hear themselves talk? Do they enjoy being mean? Is criticism how nerds finally get to be bullies? (Aside from tech and politics I guess.)
“I think I felt the critical impulse first with fashion. There's something very instinctive about knowing whether an outfit looks good or bad. And that was something I really cared about even before I was a teen. I knew what I liked and what I didn't like. But I really didn't have the language for it. And I still struggle to find precise terms or ways to explain why I feel a certain way about a novel or a film.”
So what drives critical inquiry into and beyond our feelings might be the pursuit of language to describe why things are good or bad, the search for rules or rubric.
“For people who are developing their critical abilities at a younger or less advanced stage…you have to follow your gut. But as you advance, like advancing skills in a video game, you develop new strategies to test whether that gut feeling is true or not. And increasingly, I'm trying to challenge my gut feelings. When I'm writing about something critically, if I like something, I'm a little skeptical: Why do I like it? Is it appealing to me demographically? Do I align with the sensibilities of the author outside of the text? There are so many factors that go into the gut feeling that I try to check.
I have to talk about my Yellowface review. I felt so strongly about this book. It landed at the intersection of all my interests: Asian American identity, envy, writerly jealousy. And I was baffled by why certain decisions were made. So that feeling motivated me to deconstruct what I really disliked about it.”
Develop Skills Over Inborn Talent
Even if we find a book that entices us to dig deeper, to probe our impulses and aesthetics, how can we tell if we have opinions worth sharing? If our critical acuity is sharp?
“I really think it's a skill. I was listening to a podcast between Merve Emre and Anna Kornbluh, and they were talking about how criticism is a skill that is arguably diminishing in higher education because the academy is encouraging students to write more from a first-person perspective. And they tied this to the rise of the personal essay.”
Whether or not they’re right about such skills diminishing and why, it’s encouraging to think there’s hope for even the dopiest of us.
“What I think is really liberating about this current moment is anyone can write a review, whether that be on your own Substack or pitched to the hundreds of literary magazines out there. My first review was not as sharp as I'd like it to be. But it was a great stepping stone and I took forever on it because it was so hard to find the language. But I think it's hard for everyone when they start out. It’s the same for any kind of writing, like fiction…nobody is any good when they first start.”
Study Up and Be More Smarter
Speaking of starts: Terry’s covered TV for Vulture, and culture, tech, and trends for Dirt and Vox, and now books and how they fit into our larger cultural landscape. Why switch over?
“Because I love literature, Steve. I mean, I do. And reading Elizabeth Hardwick or Susan Sontag and reading these writers who are so good and precise really motivated me to pursue criticism as an art form. I think it's making me a way better writer. It's just helped me think better.”
If immersing ourselves in critical inquiry can sharpen our thinking and craft, where should we go to read more and find models?
“Bookforum is great. I think another thing is determining critics that you like, both contemporary and older—you know, when I read Elizabeth Hardwick, I think, ‘People don't write like that anymore.’ People don't have space to do that anymore, but it's good to remind yourself of the hypothetical range of what a critical review could look and sound like.
I also read the London Review of Books, which is more erudite and kind of annoying sometimes. I actually find the New York Times Book Reviews to be a little fluffy. A lot of it feels promotional but cloaked in lightly critical language. Someone did a really good Yellowface review in the Washington Post. Becca Rothfeld is a great critic there. I really like her work.”
So we should track names over publications.
“I think finding names more than publications is a good skill to develop. Who you read affects how you write as well. I like Andrea Long Chu, Christian Lorentzen, Gary Indiana, Renata Adler. The latter two are not writing as much anymore but I keep their collections on my desk. I follow an older Village Voice writer on Substack named Laurie Stone. She does a lot of really cool mini reviews. Katie Kadue, Jamie Hood, Anahid Nersessian, and Namwali Serpell also come to mind.
I read a lot of New York Review of Books and literary magazines. And I search up what other writers have written about a person. If you're writing about Rachel Cusk for example you have like—I wouldn't say hundreds but—at least twenty reviews you can find on Google about Rachel Cusk.“
What other resources and opportunities might be helpful?
“There’s the National Book Critics Circle’s Emerging Critics Fellowship. I want to apply to that. Merve Emre has this great podcast that she hosts called The Critic and Her Publics. It’s like every two weeks or every month, but she brings on a critic and they have a talk and it's on Spotify. It's free. I listen to a lot of podcasts with writers and critics. The LRB has some good stuff. I think The Point has one and this is maybe more essay focused, but they invite a writer and then the writer talks about their favorite essay that people most likely haven't read. I've discovered really great writing from that podcast. The Paris Review has good Art of Nonfiction. I love reading interviews of critics on their process. It's nerdy.”
What Is a Book Review?
And what should a book review look like? What are the essential components? What must it have or do?
“It must have a thesis as to why the book is good or bad, and address how or why the book succeeds or fails. Every review—and I'm speaking very broadly—should try to address whether a book succeeds or fails at what it's trying to do. It's not like, ‘Oh, this writer did this elegant thing.’ No, but how did they do this? I think that's what distinguishes a really precise piece of criticism from something that's more vibes-based. And there is an interpretive element to this for the critic too.
The more you write criticism, the more you develop a sense of your aesthetic values and tastes. It's kind of like your own values rubric. Some people really don't like experimental, non-linear, modernist stuff. For me, I love it—some of the time. I struggle with Thomas Bernhard. It's the same way with art, where some people prefer realism to abstraction.”
Consider Your Role
And when considering what our reviews might look like, we should think about whether we're more interested in rigorous criticism or fluffier coverage and marketing sort of reviews, correct?
“For a lot of emerging culture writers and critics, there's a step, right? Sometimes the way that you get the opportunity to write longer stuff is to do that softer coverage. And shorter capsule reviews. The Drift does them. A lot of publications. The Whitney Review of New Writing, which is a New York-centric print magazine. They do capsule reviews that are like maybe 150 words? 200?”
Find Your Angle
And do we examine only the text of the book? Or should we consider the world and contexts in which they’re written?
In her Yellowface review, Terry notes how the book’s focus on personal motivations for an act of literary yellowface overlooks systemic critique of the publishing industry’s fetishization of “diversity.” And for Boston Review, she looks into three books written with the assistance of AI, complicating the ethical issues by noting the “inherent polyphony of collaboration” when editors work on them, when agents might work on them. In other words: how important is it to peg a review to larger trends or social issues?
“I think it adds perspective and value because when a person is writing a text, they're not writing it in a vacuum. And this is very against New Criticism or whatever you call it. I was a culture reporter before I was a culture critic so I think investigating external phenomena, cultural phenomena, is really central to how I develop my own opinions about certain things.”
Speaking of literary theory, how might book reviews differ from scholarly academic writing, in terms of approach and product?
“I’m generalizing here, but almost every scholarly article you read has a narrow thesis and they make it very clear it's a thesis. And then they defend it from like five different angles…but with a review or a critical essay, there's a fluidity to how you can approach it in the first-person and bring in alternate sources, cultural sources.”
Focus!
That sounds overwhelming though, with all the lenses available, the possibilities for sources. How do we keep our work from being a mess?
“If someone is pitching a review, the most important thing to do before you write is to be confident in the thesis or pitch. Sometimes the review fans out in a ton of different directions. And the good thing about having a pitch or a thesis is you return to it and you don't feel overwhelmed by the five different angles you can take.”
So, by pitching, a focus and direction emerges. We're narrowing down what we’ll talk about.
“For my review of Victoria Chang’s With My Back to the World and its relationship to Agnes Martin…that pitch helped to rein in the scope because it was so big. It was about a minimalist artist and the limits of language. Like thousands of works have been written about the limits of language. I think a lot of books address a lot of very large general themes but narrowing down makes your job easier.”
…But Be Open to the Process
Even so, things don’t always go as planned—which can be good!
“Sometimes when I'm writing—I feel like there's a moment where it clicks and I'm like, ‘Oh, I'm almost done.’ Some writers I know outline their reviews. I do a loose outline, but when I'm writing, it kind of goes off in all different directions. You don't really know. For the AI piece, there's a paragraph where I mentioned Joseph Cornell collages. And it wasn't until I reached that paragraph that I was like, ‘Oh, I got it.’ I was sort of groping blindly. I reorganize a lot. I edit while I write often. It doesn't come out all in one go very easily.”
That’s reassuring for those who outline but still struggle with the words. When I’m writing fiction, it rarely feels alive or “right” until something surprises me. There's some duende involved. Like a weird prairie dog pops up and I'm like, “Okay now we’re on track.”
“I'm actually reading Mary Robison right now. And she's, like, queen. But she was talking about her process in the Paris Review—she compares it to assembly.”
Get Your Work Out There
In terms of craft, this is all great to know. And as for career…?
“And in terms of professionalization, I had a very ‘If you want to write it, you can publish it’ mindset. I was pitching to a lot of places and got rejected and I was like, ‘If worse comes to worse, I’ll publish it in my Substack.’ Which is an avenue that I really recommend. I would say not to wring your hands over the publication, the specific publication. If publication is the end goal, you shouldn't write until the pitch gets accepted. But if criticism is something you want to put into practice, just write.
I reviewed books from writers who were dead first. That allowed me to say my opinion without psyching myself out about what the author would think.
I sought out more indie releases. New Directions is a great press, if that's something of your interest. If you want to cover a very buzzy review—like Rachel Cusk—certain publications will likely already have someone writing about it.
I was going on NetGalley and looking at coming releases and requesting them. I would say not to pitch before you read the book, which is obvious.
Don't write as if you think you're going to be graded. Have fun with it? I think that's an element that's important. You should have fun.”
However, having “fun” doesn’t mean being loose with arguments and analysis.
“Don't write anything you're not 100% certain about. Like if there's no textual evidence for it, do not over-infer. I don't—knock on wood—I don't think I've done this. I'm very proud of not having anyone poke holes in my reviews, but I am very neurotic about the potential of that happening. I think you're more aware of it if you're writing a negative review.“
And Start Beefs?
Is it bad to write a negative review? Do people want to read them?
“It's good. People who don't believe in a robust, rigorous ecosystem of criticism are kind of just—I don't even know what to say to them. I'm like, ‘Why not?’”
It’s a net positive to think critically about things, right? To participate in The Market and our literary communities. Sometimes there’s beef and that’s okay too. Just be prepared for pushback.
“Once you've written criticism, it's fair for you to be criticized, which is why you should make your work airtight. I'm not naming names, but I think among critics there's this impulse—if you call people out, people can't call you out? Which is not true. It's a marketplace of ideas.”
Who doesn’t enjoy a juicy literary feud? …👀
“I have no nemesis! I'm nemesis-free…. At the moment.”
List of Resources and Submission Opportunities Mentioned:
Advanced Reading Copies
New Directions and other presses
Conversations
The Paris Review’s Art of Nonfiction
Critics
Criticism
On Monday September 23 we’ll focus on how to level up your interview pitches - what’s essential in a strong pitch, how to prep for emailing strangers and how to advance yourself even when pitches don’t go. Want in?
Calling all book reviewers! My forthcoming release has full-page illustrations, has won an award, and it is available on Net Galley (+ LibraryThing + BookSirens). Also happy to send you an ARC + Press Kit.
The hook of "Always Haunted" is Hallowe'en - - but it's really focused on crime and injustice.
Links:
"Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems" on NetGalley -- https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/437468
"Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems" on LibraryThing - https://www.librarything.com/ner/detail/51092/Always-Haunted-Halloween-Poems
You give a lot to chew on here. Thank you Steve and Terry! I’m motivated to get my squinty critic stare out and write some reviews now. ;-)