The site is aimed at book-buying librarians, though anyone can subscribe. It includes over 20 years of reviews, including starred reviews, “best” lists and Junior Library Guild selections. “This website extends the value of our reviews beyond print, offering librarians one highly functional yet agile tool to support collection development efforts, while bringing online access to professional reviews of books and media to avid readers everywhere,” Ian Singer, group publisher for Library Journal, School Library Journal and The Horn Book, says in a statement.

Book Verdict is free to browse, but you have to pay to get access to the full text of the reviews and other features. Subscriptions start at $60 per year for a basic subscription to Book Verdict Pro Library Journal or School Library Journal (including all reviews plus tools like lists and saved searches) and go up to $99 per year for Book Verdict Pro Plus, which includes all reviews from Library Journal, School Library Journal, Horn Book and Junior Library Guild.

Existing subscribers to any of the publications get free online access to all of its reviews or can upgrade to Pro for a fee that ranges from $12 to $33 for the remainder of their subscription.

Book Verdict launches at the American Library Association’s annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. this week.

See also

RLJ Equity acquires Media Source, owner of School Library Journal and others

Shelf Awareness launches new book review for consumers

Photo courtesy of Flickr / ButterflySha

The Slate Book Review will include “reviews of the newest fiction and nonfiction; essays on reading, writing, and the great (and terrible) books of years gone by; author interviews; videos and podcasts; and much more.” Editor is Slate’s Dan Kois, who tells the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) he’ll use “a mix of staff writers and freelancers” to produce the content.

In launching the book review, Slate says it’s “going against the conventional wisdom” that book reviews aren’t economically feasible. Of course, that “conventional wisdom” generally refers to weekly print book reviews, and the Slate Book Review will be entirely online (and only monthly). It joins other online book reviews, including the Barnes & Noble Review, The Millions, Shelf Awareness for Readers, the romance-focused Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Bookriot and One-Minute Book Reviews.

In other words, there’s not exactly a dearth of book coverage available online, though Slate brings a trusted brand and some well-known writers to the table. And if it’s not that profitable, well, print book reviews never have been either. I wrote an article about the future of book reviews when I was the editor of Publishing Trends. Here’s my favorite part of that piece:

Book reviews have never made much money. In his 2007 Columbia Journalism Review article “Goodbye to All That,” Steve Wasserman, managing director of the Kneerim & Williams New York office and a former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, recalls asking Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. whether the NYTBR had ever made any money: “He looked at me evenly and said, ‘I think, Steve, someone in the family would have told me if it had.’”

In her book Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America, Gail Pool blames the publishers: “[I]n failing to support reviews with even a minimum of advertising, publishers sent an implicit message: book reviews are expendable.” In his article, however, Wasserman said such arguments were “bogus. Such coverage has rarely made a dime for newspapers.”

In an interview, he told me that “publishers care less and less about reviews. There’s no real evidence that advertising for a book alone helps create additional sales,” and he envisions nonprofit models “closer to NPR” for book review sites; he does not know how online critics will be able to make a living.

A new, free online newsletter for consumers, titled Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers–from the editors of Shelf Awareness–aims to introduce everyday readers to the best new books. And while that sounds like an obvious goal, the fact is that it is much easier for consumers to learn about upcoming movies and music than it is for them to learn about new books. “Movie houses put up their trailers many months in advance and show previews every time you’re at the movies,” says Jenn Risko, Publisher of Shelf Awareness. “You start seeing ads on iTunes for upcoming albums in advance and they usually release the hit song before the whole album….I’ve wished for a long time that I knew what was cool and new [in books]. This is our answer to that.”

Although websites like the Huffington Post and Daily Beast have added books and publishing coverage, you still have to wade through them to find any book reviews, which aren’t the focus of those sites (reviews of single books don’t drive traffic). And while publications like Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly review dozens of new and upcoming books each week, they are aimed at professional book buyers and publishing professionals and they include positive, neutral and negative reviews. Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers, sent out on Tuesdays and Fridays at noon, will review just 25 books each week–including e-book exclusives, paperback debuts, book apps, audiobooks, and traditional hardcover releases–across all genres. It aims to feature only “the best” books.

“The reviews will be honest, but they’ll be positively honest,” says Bethanne Patrick, consumer editor of the new publication, “not because we’re against running critical or negative reviews but because we’re trying to set up the 25 best books for people to pay attention to in their local bookstore. That’s the goal behind it. We’re not reviewing everything and we’re not trying to do critical analysis.” However, reviews of exceptional books will be starred, “in recognition that it often takes a starred review for a library or bookstore to stock a title.”

Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers also aims to differentiate itself from Kirkus and PW by the backgrounds of its over 60 freelance reviewers, who include booksellers, critics, book bloggers, and librarians with “great street cred” in a variety of genres. The reviewers are paid more than the reviewers for Kirkus or PW. Patrick and book review editor Marilyn Dahl will select the books to be included each week.

The newsletter will also include features and items from the professional edition of Shelf Awareness that are most likely to interest general readers, including book trailer of the day, author media appearance listings, and news on topics like e-reader price wars and bookstore chains.

Patrick said that the new Shelf Awareness is aiming for 150,000 to 200,000 subscribers by the end of the year. The newsletter will be promoted extensively using social media (Patrick already has 87,000 Twitter followers, thanks in part to her weekly “Friday Reads” campaign), outreach from trade publishers to their in-house consumer lists, and recommendations from subscribers to the professional edition. Ingram has agreed to license the publication’s reviews, and other deals are in negotiation. Some of the larger independent bookstores have also expressed interest in adding the publication’s reviews to their in-store newsletters. Shelf Awareness has partnered with social media agency Banyan Branch–which also handles social media for Glee and Fox Searchlight–to run galley giveaways.

Like the professional edition, Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers is entirely advertising-supported.