Recruitment by Geoff Willmetts.
It’s that time of year again. The nights are drawing in and those who read intently get ready for ever more books to fill their time. Are you one of those? You might be the kind of person that I’m looking for, more so if you like the idea of a book for a review. You must have an obsession with reading and voicing opinions about what you’ve read in a polite way.
The main skills needed are the ability to write a précis without giving away too many spoilers and being able to give some honest opinion as to whether you enjoyed the book or not. With both, there is a need to explain both good and bad points. Show you can do that and send me a sample then you might find yourself getting access to a wealth of books that will keep you going for evermore. If you can read a couple books a month, that’s great. Who knows, you might even get your grammar right but you’ll find me a useful editor in making sure you look your best. Some of my team have even interviewed authors through this so you’ll be adding to your skills.
For paper based books, we can only accept people who live in the UK. For digital ebooks, I can draw across the world but it still needs a demonstration that you can write so don’t even consider it unless you can. You’re going to need such grounding before anything else.
If you haven’t seen anything that you normally read at SFCrowsnest, then chances are that we haven’t had someone here available to do it. We really could do with a few more fantasy and horror genre reviewers but that shouldn’t preclude SF reviewers.
We act totally geek here and often seek out books that were missed in the past and we don’t always stick to release dates. What we do adhere to is reading the books properly and making proper honest assessments.
Do you think you have what it takes?
Don’t be scared if you’re a novice. A few books under your belt and you’ll be the same as us.
You should be able to decipher my email address under the editorial and where I start going into reviewer hunting in more detail.
Geoff Willmetts
October 2016