Reviews are the oxygen of literary publishing; without them, we would be cut off from an essential life-source. Because the books we publish are generally not by 'brand- name' authors, whose books sell with or without reviews, and because we seldom advertise, we depend on the space given to our books by literary editors. When the reviews are favourable, of course, they are worth infinitely more than any advertisement. The reader knows that the good review is not influenced by the publisher's marketing budget: it is the voice of reason, and there is no doubt that it helps to sell books. Publishers themselves often claim that they look for size rather than content in reviews. The actual effect of reviews on sales is the inscrutable heart of the whole business. Good reviews can launch a book and a career and occasionally lift sales into the stratosphere: but never entirely on their own. There has to be some fusion with other elements — a word-of-mouth network of recommendation, a robust response from the book trade, clever marketing.