Publisher C

Reviews are the oxygen of literary publishing; without them, we would be cut off from an essential life-source. Because the books we publish are generally not by 'brand-name' authors, whose books sell with or without reviews, and because we seldom advertise, we depend on the space given to our books by literary editors.

When the reviews are favourable, of course, they are worth infinitely more than any advertisement. The reader knows that the good review is not influenced by the publisher's marketing budget: it is the voice of reason, and there is no doubt that it helps to sell books. Publishers themselves often claim that they look for size rather than content in reviews.

The actual effect of reviews on sales is the inscrutable heart of the whole business. Good reviews can launch a book and a career and occasionally lift sales into the stratosphere: but never entirely on their own. There has to be some fusion with other elements - a word-of-mouth network of recommendation, a robust response from the book trade, clever marketing.

Publisher D

The relationship in Britain between publishing and reviewing? I wish I knew! In the United States it's simple: the New York Times can make or break a book with a single review. Here, though, the people in the bookshops often don't appear to take much notice of them.

It sometimes takes 20 years of consistently outstanding reviews for people to start reading a good writer's work. Yet some of the most dismally received books, or books not yet reviewed, are the biggest sellers of all. So it's all very unpredictable, though non-fiction is less so.

Mind you, non-fiction does allow reviewers to indulge themselves by telling us what they know about the subject of the book under review rather than about the book itself.

Publisher E

Of course, all publishers and all writers dream of long, uniformly laudatory reviews. But do they sell books? I once published a biography. The reviews were everything I could have craved. The book was a flop - because everyone thought that, by reading the lengthy reviews, they need not buy the book.

Does the name of the reviewer make a difference? Thirty years ago, if certain reviewers praised a book, the public seemed to take note and obey their recommendations. These days, it is as much the choice of an unexpected reviewer, or the sheer power or wit or originality of the review, which urges the prospective buyer into the bookshop.

Ex 2

For questions 13-27, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap.