Before you apply, please be aware that we are only accepting applications from library workers or library school students on their way to professional work. In order to keep the perspective of this site consistent and unique, we are keeping our review staff limited in this way for the current time.

What we can offer:

• physical and/or digital review copies of titles
• A chance to write for a professionally recognized review source

• Payment for reviews (other than review copies)

If this sounds good to you, please apply here.

In order to be considered for reviewing or writing on the site, we need a writing sample.

You can submit a review or feature post you've written for another site or institution (for example, your library's site.) You can also write up a new review in the style of our reviews and submit that for our consideration with your application.

Please note -- a sample review from Goodreads or Amazon can give us a sense of how you think about titles, but is usually not to the same purpose as the reviews we write here on the site. If your sample review is not similar in length and detail to the ones published here, we suggest submitting a new review of a favorite title, or expanding a shorter review you've already written.

If your writing sample doesn't give us a good picture of your style, we may reply to ask you to submit a review in the style of No Flying No Tights.

If you would like to send in a newly written sample review, here are the guidelines we ask NFNT reviewers to use when writing reviews for the site.

The basics

Length of a review: 500-700 words. 1,000 words is the hard limit.

Any review must include:

• Story synopsis (think of it as a trailer for the title.) No longer than one paragraph within the review.
• Critical assessment of the writing
• Critical assessment of the art
• Appeal - what kind/age of reader does this appeal to most strongly?
• Age-range(s) if necessary - avoid “all ages” as it’s an unhelpful term
• Mention if the publisher age-rating matches your assessment, especially if they conflict
• If you’re reviewing anime, you would also need to address the specifics of that medium including dubbing, subtitles, etc.

Review audience

Our audience is:

• Library professionals
• Educators
• Parents
• Fans

Most of the readers coming to the site are looking to answer basic questions:

• Should I buy this?
• If I buy this, where should it go in my collection?
• Should I start collecting this now (for new series)?
• Do I need to go back and buy all the older volumes (for classic series/manga)?

Think about how you make your own collection development decisions. What information do you need from a review to help you decide whether or not to purchase a book. Be sure to include discussion of elements that this audience trusts us to bring up including:

• Content red flags (nudity, language, gore, violence, sexualized violence)
• Positive representation (inclusion of underrepresented people or groups)
• Negative representations (egregious stereotypes in writing and/or art)
• Fan service (scenes that seem fine as a long-standing manga reader may not be so fine to a new manga collection started in a small town library)
• Binding/durability (will this hold up to 50+ circs?)
• Size (will this fit on a regular library shelf?)
• Availability (where it is available if it’s not the usual vendors)
• Cost, especially if it’s prohibitively expensive
• Read-alikes (if readers like X, they will like Y)

Negative reviews

NFNT is not "recommend only." You can review a title you did not like.

However, if you do, please be sure to:

• Support your opinion with examples
• Review the book and not the creator - never make it personal

Style and tone

At NFNT, we encourage readers to have a professional, critical, and informative, yet conversational tone. You are welcome to talk about yourself in first person within your review. Snarky is fine, silly is fine, and academic is fine, as long as you are giving the readers the information they need and being fair to the creator(s) and publisher(s). Pointing out flaws is acceptable; being rude is not.