Dear Frank,

I've scoured your Web site, but I can't find any information on how you recruit technical reviewers. I'm interested in taking on freelance work in this area but am not sure how to break into the field. Do you have any advice?

Thanks!
Mike

Dear Mike:

Tech reviewing for O'Reilly is a little different than it is for some other technical publishers. Other publishers use technical reviewers to give editorial direction to the manuscript; we believe our editors should be able to do that. So we use tech reviewers later in the process, to ensure the detailed technical accuracy of the information in the book and its appropriateness for its readers. Each book uses, on average, five tech reviewers, who work for a modest honorarium. Mostly, they review the book because they like O'Reilly and they care about the accuracy of information about their favorite technologies.

Usually, our editors and their authors choose the tech reviewers from people they know or from relevant mailing lists and Web sites.

Our editors are very well-connected in the fields they cover, so they usually know a number of people who would be good tech reviewers for a book. We look for people who are well-known in the technical community. Sometimes, they are authors of other books for us; others are simply prominent in the newsgroups and mailing lists for that community.

If you're interested in reviewing books for us, you can send me information about the topics with which you have significant technical experience and I will forward your name, email address, and information to the relevant editors. I have rarely seen one of our editors use reviewers who become known to us in that way, however. They always know the reviewers whom they want. So perhaps the best way to become a tech reviewer for us is to become a significant member of a technical community. Then we'll come to you.

Thanks,

Frank