How I Became a Reviewer

How I Became a Reviewer:

I started the East Bay Mystery Readers' group in 1994 (still going strong) and kept track of what I'd read making brief notes as to why I did, or didn't, like a book. At the time, there were a couple very active mystery email groups, DorothyL and 4_Mystery_Addicts, both of which still exist in email format and on Facebook, and I started receiving positive feedback on my comments.

Over time, and I mean years, I was first asked to write reviews for a publisher/bookseller from whom I bought MANY of my books. The publisher provided me a guideline of the elements at which I should look when reviewing a book after which I spent 3 years evaluating manuscripts for them. As I gained confidence and skill, I also started, at their requests, writing reviews for a couple newsletters, one online, and one in print out of Australia.

I did that for quite a long time. Once the woman who ran the online review newsletter retired, I began to contact, with her permission, publishers from whom she had been receiving ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), and have built up my reputation from there, even having spent a year as a paid reviewer for a well-known print magazine.

Now, my reviews are included in Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, a subscription e-magazine, Mystery Readers' Journal, a subscription print publication, Mystery*File, on a multitude of Facebook mystery groups, on Goodreads, at LJ's Mystery Reviews - It is purely my opinion, as well as sent to an email list of ~300 people who requested to receive them. So in all, I started posting my notes in ~2004, became a published reviewer in 2007, and a "professional" reviewer in 2011.

I still spend a lot of time contacting publishers/authors, and going to conferences on the rare occasion when I can afford them. No, no one currently pays me. I consider myself paid in the ARCs I receive, and in the satisfaction I receive from those who follow my reviews, ask to be put on my email list, and comment that they enjoy my reviews.