Taking on a review
A book review comes with arrangements around its content: how assignments and review copies are found, which assignments to decline, the standpoint a reviewer declares, and the details the outlet prints at the head of the review.
Finding an assignment and a review copy
Some journals publish book reviews and others do not. In 2018 those that published them included the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, The Lancet, The Pharos and Family Medicine, while many, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and American Family Physician, had once published book reviews and no longer did. One experienced author considers this a loss to aspiring authors, potential reviewers and clinician readers.
A book review is almost always invited, by the journal's editor or its book review editor. Occasionally a writer submits an unsolicited review, but the same author doubts that many are published. In his view unsolicited reviews are suspect, and editors need not take chances. Any literate clinician can offer to become a reviewer by naming one or two chief areas of clinical expertise and writing to the journal's editor. In 2018 a reviewer who was selected received a copy of the book to keep as payment. A published book review is an appropriate entry on an academic curriculum vitae.
In 2011 the Early Reviewer programme of LibraryThing, an online community of book lovers, gave free prerelease books to members willing to review them.
Conflicts of interest
One author of a guide to medical writing declines to review a book that might be perceived to compete with one of his own, because that would be a genuine conflict of interest. So he holds that during the publication life of his guide he should not review any books on medical writing.
A reviewer asked to review a book written or edited by a colleague who is a personal acquaintance should, the same author suggests, pass the opportunity to someone else. The authors of books under review may be the most avid readers of book reviews, and an author will feel the pain of every unfavourable word. Criticising an author's book in print is like striking someone's child, and even in a balanced review the negative comments can be taken very personally. Declining the review helps assure an unbiased evaluation of the book, and it can prevent the loss of a friend.
Bogus book reviews appear online, and bribes have been offered for reviews. In 2009 Public Citizen reported that the major publisher Elsevier had offered a copy of the book under review and a $25 Amazon gift card for a review posted on the Amazon or Barnes & Noble website. The book's lead editor said that he and his coeditor were innocent victims of the attempt.
The reviewer's standpoint
In 2008 the AMWA Journal closed a book review and a website review each with a line saying where the reviewer lived and what they did, and the website reviewer's line named the company she owned.
In a 2009 AMWA Journal review of Melody Petersen's Our Daily Meds, a history of US drug pricing and advertising that describes the Kefauver hearings, the reviewer recalled the atmosphere of those hearings from his own memory. A note under the review identified him as a retired physiologist who had taught at medical schools, worked with Roche on new drug development, been responsible for that company's FDA activities for almost twenty-five years, and served as AMWA president in 1973.
In a 2008 review of a book of patient cases shown in pictures, the reviewer, who had written extensively about genetic diseases, said that she had never known or seen anyone with alcaptonuria or amyloidosis and that the book had examples of both. Her great-grandmother had died of pellagra, a nutritional deficiency, and in the book she was able to read a case of an actual person with the condition.
Details at the head of the review
In 2012 EMWA's journal Medical Writing printed its review of Nathan D. Wolfe's The Viral Storm under the book's title, author, publisher, year, ISBN, price and page count.