{"id":20028,"date":"2017-01-17T08:30:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T13:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=20028"},"modified":"2017-01-17T08:30:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T13:30:21","slug":"the-starred-review-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=20028","title":{"rendered":"The Starred Review App"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Our astute staffer, Sandy, often makes casual remarks at work that lead to blog posts. (Lucky for me!)\u00a0Recently, she’s\u00a0implemented a new system for organizing Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) in our office bookcase: instead of simply arranging them by publication date, Sandy looks up reviews and arranges them in stacks by starred reviews received. One star, two stars, three stars, on the top shelf, followed by the books that have yet to receive stars.
\nThere are some flaws in the system:\u00a0books\u00a0continue to earn stars over the course of weeks and months, of course, so no stack of ARCs is guaranteed to be accurate past\u00a0the moment of shelving. And there’s very little time in the bookselling day to revisit ARC placement. Still, when the timing works out, it’s a very helpful way to make sure\u00a0critically acclaimed books\u00a0are seen and read by staff before publication.
\nToday, when we were receiving a batch of new ARCs, Sandy remarked, “I wish there were an app that would ding whenever a book got a starred review.” My world lit up.
\n
\nAs a buyer who is stocking a full general store, not just the children’s selection, I would be so grateful for an app that alerted me to new stars across genres. I can’t read every book, and I pay close attention to review sources I respect.
\nSome of you may\u00a0remember that for several years, I used to compile the starred reviews for youth literature every year, an endeavor that took countless hours. Now the amazing librarian Jennifer Jazwinski<\/a> keeps a\u00a0spreadsheet of starred reviews<\/a> each year, and it’s an invaluable resource. But how fabulous would it be to have an app that compiled those stars, was sortable in any number of ways, and linked to the reviews themselves?
\nAn app that acted as a clearinghouse for Booklist, the Horn Book, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, etc., would be an incredible resource I’d pay for. An app could lead\u00a0traffic and potentially new subscribers to those review magazines, and show partial reviews, respecting each review source’s\u00a0paywall policies.
\nIn addition to booksellers, librarians, publishing folks, and authors, I think there would be plenty of avid readers outside the field who would use (and be willing to pay a bit for) a starred review app. So many possibilities! There would be something magical and fun for readers in an app that could send little dings every time a book in their selected genres (or even selected authors) received\u00a0a\u00a0star. And the serendipity of it! An alert might catch one’s\u00a0eye for a book one would never otherwise have discovered.
\nI know nothing about developing apps, and there are probably 84 reasons why this isn’t a feasible idea, but it seems like a straightforward process\u00a0from the standpoint of content.\u00a0Each review source would send its starred review lists to the app developer as they are published, along with links to the\u00a0magazine’s review pages for those titles. Additional features could\u00a0be added along the way as feedback and requests come in from users.
\nAs a bookseller, I’d easily pay up to $25\u00a0a year for that app on top of my subscriptions, and I don’t think I’m alone. As Jo Regular Reader, I’d happily pay $5.99. There are probably many thousands of\u00a0non-industry book lovers\u00a0who would\u00a0never think of subscribing to trade review magazines, but might pay for a\u00a0starred review app (and then \u2013 who knows? \u2013 find themselves wanting a subscription to one of those magazines).
\nWhile I envision a single app that compiles the starred reviews, Sandy said she would even be willing\u00a0for each review source to have a separate\u00a0app. We agreed to disagree on that one, especially since the whole\u00a0concept is imaginary.
\nWould any of you ShelfTalker readers be interested in a starred review\u00a0app? And if so, what features would it include?<\/strong>
\nP.S. Many of my favorite children’s books haven’t received starred reviews; they may be ideal for and beloved by children, but not garner critical acclaim. So part of me regrets putting so much weight on starred reviews \u2013 but they are extremely helpful in guiding reading and even buying\u00a0decisions, so I can’t pretend they don’t matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if there were an app alerting readers to book review stars?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}