Prospective Reviewers

So, you’re interested in reviewing for Green Man Review. Very good!

• If you are not a longtime reader of our site, please familiarize yourself with the publication and the genres and media we cover.
• Look around for a while to be sure the material we review is really of interest to you.
• We are looking for reviewers who have a sincere interest in at least some of our subject areas, who would be willing to review for us for at least a year, contributing approximately one review every six weeks.
• We do realize that life can get in the way of this timetable, and we’re flexible; we just want people who will take the job seriously and stick around awhile.

Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect if you work for us:

• Staff reviewers at GMR aren’t paid money (neither are the editors or anyone else, actually).
• They do receive a lot of exposure (well-known authors, publishers, musical groups, producers and a readership of about 300,000 read us every month).
• They do get professional credit for their work, keep everything they review, and enjoy community with our diverse staff.
• If you’re made a staff reviewer, you may ask for materials from a list of things available for review and/or do volunteer reviews.
• We send you materials (in the case of books and CDs), sometimes provide tickets for live performances, and occasionally provide DVDs.
• You write us a review, and you keep any materials you are sent, so long as you do review them.
• Often you’ll get advance uncorrected proofs of books not on the market yet, books from overseas that won’t see local bookstores for some time, and CDs that you can’t yet get anywhere else.
• By reviewing for us, you’re granting exclusive rights to your material to GMR.
• Also, we ask that you don’t review any material you receive from GMR for other publications, online or offline. You are, of course, free to review other material for any other publication you like.

In short, here are our criteria for successful reviewers (all of these are also covered more extensively in other parts of our FAQs):

• We need at least one review from you every three months if you want to remain on staff; if we don’t hear from you for three months, we’ll contact you and ask if you’re still interested in reviewing for us.
• Our co-editors are all open to questions, requests, suggestions, etc. But if you’re told ‘no’ please don’t take it personally, because many issues have come up over and over and have been decided upon already.
• Our co-editors will sometimes ask for changes or clarifications in a review; we prefer to work with people who can take constructive criticism and cooperate with the editors. We do, however, try to preserve the individual styles and voices of our reviewers.
• The decisions of the co-editors are final.

GMR is a collaboration between everyone who works here, editors and reviewers alike. Sometimes collaborations work well, and sometimes the fit just isn’t right. When that’s true, either side should be able to pull free. Throughout your time as reviewer at GMR, but especially during the first six months, see if the fit is right for you. The editors will do the same, and we’ll check in at the end of six months—and later on, if we need to—to see if we want to keep collaborating.

If this interests you, read over our Reviewer Guide and stylesheet. Then write an audition review (any genre that we cover in any medium that we cover).

Your audition review can be of a book, video or CD you are reading/listening to/watching now, or of a past favorite. If you want to increase the chances of an audition review being published, you should check to see if we’ve already reviewed the material you choose, and also whether it is appropriate to GMR. That won’t affect its approval for getting you on staff; it will only affect whether we’ll use it for immediate publication after approval. We never do reprints, even if the material has only appeared on a personal Web site, though we will look at material you’ve already published, if you care to include it.

Audition reviews will be judged on the basis of general writing ability and the ability to write knowledgeably about your subject. We look for reviews that are thorough, interesting, and technically superb.

Submitting audition reviews:

Please send your audition review in the body of a plain text e-mail message. Do not send html, or other files. Be sure to proofread and spellcheck your audition thoroughly before sending, and follow the format (and style sheet) of our existing reviews. Please put ‘audition review’ in the Subject of your e-mail message. Indicate clearly if we may publish (with exclusive rights) the audition review, or if it has already been promised to another publication. Email your audition review to submissions@greenmanreview.com

Thanks for your interest.

Cat Eldridge
Publisher
Kinrowan Limited