Thursday, December 10, 2009

KIRKUS to Fold

The industry magazine Kirkus, which has been publishing reviews of books since 1933, is folding. As part of the sale of its business-to-business publications, Nielsen Business Media announced that it is closing Kirkus as well as Editor & Publisher. Nielsen is selling other major publications, including The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek to e5 Global Media Holdings.

This may mean nothing to those of you who readers rather than writers or librarians. But for authors, a starred review in Kirkus was an important thing because it boosted library sales, which can account for a significant proportion of hardcover sales. I remember how thrilled I was the first time Kirkus gave me a starred review. The magazine's passing, of course, is part of the larger crisis currently faced by print media of all types, including newspapers.

Maybe on-line reviews will take their pace. Maybe not. One more indication of how publishing times, they are a-changin'.

4 comments:

Anahita said...

Hi Nancy,
I just wanted to say I love your stories. I just finished The Erdmann Nexus. WOW!

Andrew said...

That's too bad--now the big four are the slightly less big three...

Brendan said...

A pity it couldn't adapt(Or NBM or GMH couldn't be bothered looking at ways to update the format) to the new reality.

Imagine if this was put online with the back catalogue of reviews properly available and indexed(with links to publisher sites?) it would be a treasure trove for people looking for recommendations.

Along with perhaps a RSS feed of the latest reviews, I could imagine this being absolutely huge.

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