How the NYTimes Book Review selects books to review

In a post on the blog Book Publishing News, publicist Scott Lorenz distills a recent speech by New York Times Book Review Editor Barry Gewen and accounts from other sources to form a picture of how the NYTBR — probably the most influential and widely-read book review in the country — actually chooses which books to review. Basically:

• Up to 1000 books are submitted by publishers each week. About 5 are chosen.
• If it’s a self-help book, reference manual, or travel guide, forget it. Also, no self-published books.
• Books must offer something truly new. Books which are “workmanlike” or which don’t “bring something new to the conversation” are likely to be rejected.
• First novel? “It has to be strikingly good.”

The brutal process of selection is described in some detail, bearing out a quotation from Gewen: “One has to have a hard heart at the Book Review.”