Guide for Perl Book Reviewers
Pick a book
For The Perl Review, pick a book about Perl or a topic that most Perl programmers may be interested in. For instance, a book on cross-platform regular expressions isn't just about Perl, but is interesting to Perl programmers. Biographies of computer personalities or histories of programming can be interesting too.
If you want to ask about a particular book, you can write to us at editors@theperlreview.com.
Choose a length
Most book reviews are 300 to 400 words. You can also write a short review of a single paragraph to include in a side bar next to longer reviews.
Include the basics
People want to know the basics of the book and if they should buy the book.
- The topic
- The scope, depth, and breadth of the topic
- The audience (sysadmin, programmer, DBA, et cetera)
- The level of the book (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
State an opinion
The book review is about two things: the book and your opinion of the book. Your job is let people know what you thought of the book. Don't try to please everyone by being overly positive or trying to please a public relations person. Say what you think: everything else people can get from Amazon.
Some questions you may want to answer:
- Did the book meet your expectations?
- Did you learn something new?
- Was the book too long (or too short) for you?
Be nice
You may not like a book, but don't take it out on the author, who's only the most visible of all of the people that go into making a book. Editors, art departments, and marketing people make decisions that affect the book. If you don't like something, say so, but be nice. Include what you think would make the book better.
Submission format
We would like to work with plain text, but we can accept almost anything that you would like to send us. If you have a question about a particular format, please ask us first. We'll find the necessary graphics and the book particulars for the review.