Gollancz Geeks Takes Off!

Yesterday we sent out the first of our Gollancz Geeks emails, offering a review copy of a recent book to those members who had expressed an interest in that genre. We’ve had an amazing response, with over 200 requests for the book, and 25 lucky Geeks will be hearing before the end of Monday that there’s a book in the post to them! This is only the first of the Gollancz Geeks initiatives, and we hope that the review panel will build up into a community of readers and fans.

There has been some discussion about some of the terms of the email, though, so we thought we’d take a quick moment to clarify a couple of the details. This is not really a panel for professional and semi-professional bloggers, although they’re welcome to join Geeks, as there will be other things within the Gollancz community happening later this year which will suit them better. We’ve been very open about the fact we will be publishing reviews sent in by Geeks, so we can develop a discussion on a soon-to-be revealed new area of the Gollancz blog. We won’t alter the reviews (except for profanity) without permission, but we may trim them for space. We were very clear that we welcomed both positive and negative reviews, as we find honest reader feedback very useful. There are certain words and phrases that we, as a corporation, have to include and we’re happy to make ourselves clearer on that than perhaps we did yesterday. If a Geek doesn’t want their review to appear on the Gollancz site, then they are more than welcome to review the book wherever they like. We send a t-shirt and a badge as a thank you to those who do allow us to use their review, but there is no obligation. We hope you enjoy your free book either way, though!

We’re very excited and passionate about the books we publish, and we want to engage more of our readers, the ones who perhaps don’t have a blog or a website, but will provide impassioned comment and discussion. Of course this isn’t for everyone, but we’re thrilled that we’ve had such a great response. We’re always open to feedback from our readers and the genre community, so please do use the comments section of this blog or email us directly if you have any concerns. If you haven’t signed up for Gollancz Geeks already, you can do so here, and we hope to be revealing some exciting new aspects to the project soon!