James Lovegrove – Financial Times
Regular review column for FT – science fiction and children’s (not YA)
800 word column every other month – 4-6 titles
500 word in depth column on one book occasionally
Summer and Xmas – best of round ups (for SFF and children’s)
Lead times – copy filed a month in advance. Likes to receive titles at least 2 months in
advance to make selection from
Tries to gauge choices on what the average FT reader would like
Nothing too niche or obscure – broad remit within SFF. Can throw in occasional graphic
novel as long as its fairly mainstream
Regular SFF column is both online and print (print is also US)
Likes publicists to get in touch with titles which might be of interest or catalogues are v
helpful.
Email is best, doesn’t get into London v often. Rarely comes to London for launches /
meetings
Would love to go to events in places outside London (ie Brighton)
What stands out in a pitch? – jacket design, strapline which gets him reading the synopsis.
Not interested in author details / letter from author etc. Book first and foremost
Pet peeves – books still being sent to his old address / don’t ask for address if you already
have it!
Doesn’t do negative reviews – but will mention caveats within a review
Children’s is 5 titles twice a year – can be anything / not necc SFF. Genre doesn’t matter for
this. Can’t review children in the SFF column.
Ian Whates – ParSec Magazine
Digital only – publish once a quarter
Feature book reviews – 21 titles covered in the most recent issue
SFF, horror – like to feature small presses. V occasionally non fiction
15 or so reviewers who are sent a list and chose what they’d like to review
Helpful to receive promo sheets for titles to send out to reviewers. Fine to send books on
spec too. Cover a lot of fiction.
Lead times – every 3 months publication. Try to get reviews a month ahead. Likes to receive
book info 3 months ahead of issue.
He’s primarily an SF fan.
Relies on publishers getting in touch – receives catalogues – very useful for picking and
choosing titles.
Try to be balanced, fair, positive where possible.
Likes meeting people – but doesn’t get into London v often. Email and phone works better
Lisa Tuttle The Guardian
Not the only SF critic but writes a monthly roundup of SF / speculative, fantasy and horror.
Horror was added later.
600 words once a month (second Saturday of the month / online appears on a Friday). In
Saturday mag section.
Lead time is long – needs books 2 months ahead of publication.
Short reviews – usually reviews 5 books (always between 4-6) in the 600 words. More space
in the online edition. Often an extra book in the online edition.
Justine Jordan is the editor – will sometimes check whether a specific title is already being
covered in a solo review. Will sometimes push books Lisa’s way for the round up when not
space for a solo review.
Likes books with a strong theme eg climate, grief. Includes US because its online. Can’t
always read all the books she’s sent – will dip in and see if it appeals. Does it keep her
reading? Then she’ll review.
Particularly will give positive reviews for debuts – bringing good books to readers’ attention.
Doesn’t review romantasy as a rule or TikTok sensations.
YA – doesn’t dislike YA but better to send to the YA reviewer who will cover that.
Particularly likes speculative, well written literary fantasies, and literary well-written horror
Best way to get in touch is via email. Likes receiving catalogues – will sometimes ask about a
book she’s spotted.
Email is best – lives in Scotland.
Historical fiction with fantasy elements is not her favourite
Alison Flood – New Scientist
Culture section – 3 pages a week on books. Usually popular science
SF columnist – Emily Wilson, on 3 weekly rotation.
1 book = 700 words review
Their readers like hard Sci Fi / climate fiction – love a SF book. No fantasy (science not
fantasy). SF is an add on to core popular science
Monthly – the best new sci fi round up – this is a compilation of what’s coming out that
month. Handy to hear about what’s coming up – this is not a review slot just books to look
out for.
Popular science and SF – book club. Fiona chooses a book every month, goes out in a
newsletter, includes video interview with the author. FB group with 600 people where they
discuss the book. Always up for suggestions – has to be SF
Big event in Oct – New Scientist live at Excel. Has some room for SF authors. Interview slots
for big name SF authors.
Comment section – can take a comment piece from SF author (needs to be original).
Lead times – for Emily a couple of months is useful
For Fiona – a round up each month
Hard SF – like to delve into the science behind the story. Print and online.
Email is best
Pitch – useful to clearly know what a book is going to know about. Publishing catalogues are
helpful – digital.
Please send to NEW address. Doesn’t review children’s books.
Nils Shukla – Fantasy Hive blog
We’re a collaborative blog that celebrates the fantasy, sci-fi, and horror genre. Social media
accounts range between 3k-7k across all platforms. I also am a reviewer of epic fantasy,
historical fantasy, dark academia, light academia, cozy fantasy, and the new trend at the
minute murder mystery fantasy, which I’m a huge fan of. My reviews are then posted on
The Fantasy Hive website along with my own goodreads and Fable account and my
bookstagram account Nilsreviewsit.
Team also cover a wide range of the SFF genre. We have seven active reviewers who
contribute quite regularly, with another five who contribute more occasionally. So for
instance we have a reviewer who specifies in sci-fi books, we have one who specifies in
horror and speculative fiction, and another who reviews cli-fi.
The website has daily posts and the type of content we share ranges from giveaways, guest
posts, interviews with authors, acquisition announcement, cover reveals and at the end of
each month we do a post called Top Picks where each of our team shares a little bit about
their favourite read of the month. But we’re also open to doing anything that a publicist
might ask us to do. We’re quite happy to accommodate.
At the end of the year our team comes together to do our Year-End Awards where we each
vote on our favourite reads of the year across several categories and then share the
nominees and winners across our social media platforms. One of our most popular posts is
the most anticipated books of the year, and so we find it really helpful when publicists email
us a catalogue of the titles that are coming up in the following year, so we can add them to
this list. We find this post has a lot of views and interactions, so it seems to be a great way
of people finding out which publishers have which books coming out.
The ways in which we prefer for publicists to approach us with their upcoming titles is
something like what Orbit Books does. We receive monthly emails with the titles for books
coming out two months after, so for example in January the email will be about titles
publishing in March. Within the email it explains a little bit about each book and shares
netgalley links for each title and then at the end includes a Google docs form for us to
request physical ARC copies, and that’s really useful because we can just request what we
want.
Catalogues are very useful
If unsolicited arcs are sent out, then there should not be an expectation for a review – more
helpful to email first.
Don’t send sequels to a title that they’ve not reviewed previously
Trying to get a reviewer who does YA
Review team don’t really like romantasy
Will v occasionally cover non fiction
Additional
Alison / Lisa – happy to review PBs if missed it in HBs. Alison prefers PB for the book club
Lisa to likes to get a balance across all the sub genres
Note from David V Barret – Fortean Times:
For my SF-etc column in Fortean Times I rarely cover hard SF or space opera, or genre
fantasy, or most horror; I’m looking for fiction dealing with Fortean ideas, more left-field —
perhaps unusual or even quirky — speculative fiction both within and outside these genres.