Whether you write poetry, nonfiction, gardening books or novels, writing book reviews is an excellent way to expand your writing practice and your publication credits. The task sharpens your skills, deepens the reading experience, and helps support the writers’ community. The niche also separates you from the crowd: literary journals are besieged with poems and short stories, but not, it appears, with reviews.

Just to be clear, the reviews I discuss here are not ones people leave on Amazon. Although there’s nothing wrong with doing Amazon reviews, that type of review doesn’t increase your list of publications, therefore, aiding your resume. Paid reviews are more distinct pieces of writing, published in a magazine or journal.

Literary magazines, the genre I write reviews for, usually have a section on their guidelines pages asking specifically for reviews. Here you will find word counts, genres, deadlines, and pay scales. Some magazines also maintain a list of recently published books, and prefer that you review one of them. Most magazines ask for the completed review, while a few require a pitch. If this is your first time submitting to a particular magazine, you might have to include a link to previous work. If you don’t have a review to share, a recent clip will do.

Each month I send out a newsletter, titled Sticks & Stones, which contains a review of a recent poetry book. I also publish, on average, five or six reviews per year with literary journals. This adds up to close to twenty reviews a year. I’ve published every review I’ve ever sent to a magazine or journal, something I wish I could say about my essays, articles and poems!

If you’re a writer, then you are also a reader (or should be). Writing a review of a book you enjoyed and that you wish others would read benefits both the author of the book and the author of the review. In essence, you share a byline.

What about negative reviews? I steer away from them. If I come across a book I don’t like, I simply choose not to review it. As Anjali Enjeti writes in Secrets of the Book Critics, “I’d much rather celebrate a book than criticize it.” This doesn’t mean that I praise every book I review. My goal as a reviewer is to explore a book and invite the reader in. (I talk more about this in my blog post, “How I Review A Poetry Collection.”)  This is a personal choice, however. You might want to write a review of a book you didn’t especially like.

The best way to get started writing reviews is to choose a reviewer whose work interests you and read several of her reviews. Ask yourself how the reviewer encounters the book—does the review make you want to read it? Is it an interesting exploration of the book, or basically plot summary? You should also study journals you’d like to publish in.

Pay for reviews runs from none to $200 and up. If you’re just starting out, it’s fine to accept some unpaid publication credits to build your portfolio, but as you progress, you should pitch magazines that pay. My first few reviews were unpaid, but today I usually receive a decent, if not lavish fee for my reviews. The reviews I write for my newsletter are an important part of my writing practice, and although I don’t charge for the newsletter, they have brought me paid review assignments. In addition, they function as a portfolio.

To find markets for reviews, check FundsforWriters, Poets & Writers, and New Pages Book Review Source.

Writing reviews is a great way to focus a newsletter or blog, gaining you new readers.

Reviews increase your publication credits and add a skill to your writing practice. Best of all, they support the writers’ community.

BIO: Erica Goss is the author of Night Court, winner of the 2017 Lyrebird Award from Glass Lyre Press. Her reviews have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Pedestal, Cider Press Review, Main Street Rag, Sugar House Review, and others. Erica served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California, from 2013-2016. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, where she teaches, writes and edits the newsletter Sticks & Stones.