I know the discussion has moved on, but I made a couple of errors in my comments above, on which I have been gently corrected. So please indulge me as I copy the relevant apologies from a much longer posting about How Publishing Has All Gone Kerflooey:

"The glossy paper supplements included in the main Kirkus Reviews are NOT Kirkus Discoveries, but a separate publication, including ads, intended to highlight particular genres and topics in a more "light-hearted" way. My time-constrained perusal led me to conflate "Kirkus + Ads" with "Kirkus Discoveries", which was utterly unfair to the people who put these supplements together.

Worse, I had two reviewers who do write for Discoveries contact me privately and tell me that they were NOT insulted to do so, it was honest professional work, and they gave their Discoveries reviews the same objective and careful consideration they gave all their work. Indeed, it was not difficult at all (once I thought to look for it) to find a Web filled with complaints by Discoveries authors who felt that Kirkus gave only cruel, mean, unfair reviews in return for their investment, which testifies that at least these are in fact NOT "the best reviews that money can buy."

So apologies to those reviewers, and to all who I unfairly characterized."

Thanks.