AvantGuild: Jessa Crispin Reinvents the Book Review Section

mediabistro.com’s main site has an interview with Jessa Crispin, the founding editor and and publisher of Bookslut, one of the literary blogosphere’s best-known sites. How does she explain the site’s success? It’s a matter of sticking to what they do best—commenting on books—on their own terms:

“Once you start chasing the reader, that’s when the reader loses interest. There’s all this talk about what can we do to capture the attention of a particular demographic, but I think having a conversation is probably the least productive thing you could be doing. I like what we’re doing on Bookslut. Our audience likes what we’re doing on Bookslut. So I just sort of leave it at that.”

As “what we’re doing” gains readers while newspaper book review sections continue to fold, Crispin observes:”I’m pleased as punch that the idea of the authority is going away. The New York Times never spoke to me. If you were one of those people who don’t agree that Philip Roth is the greatest American living writer, where were you supposed to go to find new books?”

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for $59 a year, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and get all sorts of other swell bonuses.

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