{"id":6948,"date":"2026-03-26T20:29:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/?p=6948"},"modified":"2026-03-26T20:29:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:29:43","slug":"do-book-reviews-matter-anymore-w-jane-friedman-peoples-guide-to-publishing-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/do-book-reviews-matter-anymore-w-jane-friedman-peoples-guide-to-publishing-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Do book reviews matter anymore? w\/Jane Friedman | People&#8217;s Guide to Publishing Podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It&#8217;s been said more and more frequently that reviews from trade publications don&#8217;t sell books the way they used to. Why is that, and what DOES sell books? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week on the pod, Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back to talk with Joe and Elly about the movement away from book critique to book content, what book reviews are good for, and what, if anything, they can do to help sell books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> For more valuable insights about the book industry from Jane, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\">The Bottom Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prefer an audio experience?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/linktr.ee\/microcosm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app<\/a>.<br>Get the\u00a0<em>People\u2019s Guide to Publishing<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/3663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>, and the workbook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/zines\/10031\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>!<br>Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/confirmsubscription.com\/h\/r\/0EABB2040D281C9C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been said more and more frequently that reviews from trade publications don&#8217;t sell books the way they used to. Why is that, and what DOES sell books? This week on the pod, Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back to talk with Joe and Elly about the movement away from book critique to&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/do-book-reviews-matter-anymore-w-jane-friedman-peoples-guide-to-publishing-podcast\/\" title=\"Read Do book reviews matter anymore? w\/Jane Friedman | People&#8217;s Guide to Publishing Podcast\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,12,11,306,26],"class_list":["post-6948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogifesto","tag-books","tag-business-of-publishing","tag-interviews","tag-jane-friedman","tag-podcast"],"my_excerpt":"<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>It's been said more and more frequently that reviews from trade publications don't sell books the way they used to. Why is that, and what DOES sell books? <\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>This week on the pod, Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back to talk with Joe and Elly about the movement away from book critique to book content, what book reviews are good for, and what, if anything, they can do to help sell books.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p> For more valuable insights about the book industry from Jane, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\">The Bottom Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Prefer an audio experience?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/linktr.ee\/microcosm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app<\/a>.<br>Get the\u00a0<em>People\u2019s Guide to Publishing<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/3663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>, and the workbook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/zines\/10031\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>!<br>Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/confirmsubscription.com\/h\/r\/0EABB2040D281C9C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>!<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->","my_excerpt_rendered":"\n<p>It&#8217;s been said more and more frequently that reviews from trade publications don&#8217;t sell books the way they used to. Why is that, and what DOES sell books? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week on the pod, Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back to talk with Joe and Elly about the movement away from book critique to book content, what book reviews are good for, and what, if anything, they can do to help sell books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> For more valuable insights about the book industry from Jane, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/about-the-bottom-line-by-jane-friedman\/\">The Bottom Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prefer an audio experience?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/linktr.ee\/microcosm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app<\/a>.<br>Get the\u00a0<em>People\u2019s Guide to Publishing<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/books\/3663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>, and the workbook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/catalog\/zines\/10031\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>!<br>Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/confirmsubscription.com\/h\/r\/0EABB2040D281C9C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}