Writer Reviews
I noted a discussion last week on reviews over on Trey’s blog and I have to say it was a summary to a year-long thought process I’ve been mulling over.
I review plants, books and tools as part of my garden writer’s task-list. I am, I admit, quite biased and after 30 years in this business in both the commercial and homeowner points of view, I like to think I have a certain sense of perspective on tools and books.
Having said that, I admit to being guilty in the past of avoiding controversy in the gardening world by either not reviewing some less-than-stellar book or crappy tool. There’s a part of me that just doesn’t want the hassle of explaining to an acquaintance that their book didn’t appeal to me or a manufacturer that this tool is a total waste of money. Avoiding controversy was far easier than taking on the increasing number of shoddy books or tools on the market.
I haven’t reviewed a book online in over 3 years now largely because I was sitting on the American Hort Societies Book Award Committee. I didn’t think it was fair to let the bias of the committee influence the way I reviewed books (for good or bad). Plus, quite frankly, I’ve been a bit busy with things that make me money (like writing my own ebooks) and building out my websites.
And that my friends pretty much sums up the review process for the past five years. Avoiding controversy, focusing on other projects or in the case of plants building a garden to house the little critters.
The tool part of that pretty much ended last year when I purchased a tool website and started rebuilding it. Troy bilt approached me and asked me to review some of their products. There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the beginning they sent me a “coupon” for some money and I could buy anything with that coupon but when I told them what I wanted, they said they had made a mistake (the coupon was for established reviewers) and they normally picked the product for first-timers. They were gracious enough to send me what I had originally asked for and I reviewed it here. I wasn’t impressed with the machine; evaluated it against others I’ve worked with and wrote that review. I note other than an email thanking me for my critical evaluation saying the engineers like to get feedback, I haven’t heard back from them again.
I no longer sit on the AHS committee (a rewarding process I note where I learned a ton about books and reviewing them thanks to the AHS folks!) and I’ve just rebuilt the entire reviewing area to make it easy for me to both review books and to have readers add their .02 to the review. I’ve read over 100 garden books in the last 3 years and have some pretty strong opinions; I hope to review the ones I think readers should own (at least they’re in a rather large pile beside my desk).
Similarly, the gardens are coming along and I’ve rebuilt the website (ongoing) to allow readers to both comment and add their own plant reviews. I have somewhere around 20 plants I’ve purchased this year and another half dozen from Ball to evaluate. Those will start going up in the next few weeks. I’ll be consolidating existing reviews into this system to bring them all under one roof.
But here’s the deal.
I’ve thought long and hard about this entire “tentative” review thing; and I have to say I’m tired of avoiding the hard truths out there that tools are poor and so are many books (yes, there are some great examples of each.)
I won’t be reviewing everything just because somebody wants to send me something; I will continue to pick and choose what I review. But I will tell you this, if I pick up a book and read it it will get reviewed one way or the other. If a plant gets into my review programme in the gardens, it will get reviewed. Whatever comes into my balliwick as a garden writer is clearly fair game.
The systems are set up, I’m in a new frame of mind and there are a ton of readers who want my opinion. You want my truth? You’re about to get it.
(you do have to sign up for the garden blog to get it though)
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