Who Owns Reviews?

Reviews of works of fiction (book reviews) are an interesting anomaly in the world of copyright. Most professional fiction writers review the works of others, and many professional fiction writers supplement their fiction income by selling review columns to magazines. In the world of science fiction and fantasy, for example, there has been a long tradition--dating back to the pulps--of running review columns in fiction magazines. This has been traditionally true also for mystery fiction, and even for romance fiction. Today there are separate review zines like Mystery Scene, Romantic Times, Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle, and others that pay small honoraria for reviews. But the columists who have a by-line in these commercial magazines usually sign a contract to write columns of so many words for each issue for a set fee per word or a set fee per column. Many fiction writers negotiate rights: offering first time rights and an option to reprint for a set fee. They retain the right to market their reviews elsewhere, and often fiction writers will market a collection of their reviews to commercial book publishers. Damon Knight and his wife Kate Wilhelm were as well known for their reviews as they were for their novels and short stories. Knight also wrote introductions and prefaces for books of reviews, as well as prefaces and introductions to fiction collections and anthologies.

Since fiction works are only peer-reviewed by an editor or editorial board (usually consisting of professional editors and not professional writers), true peer-reviewing takes place in the columns of the genre magazines and in the marketplace where readers often buy books or magazines based on reviews and blurbs by other writers.