The topic for today at Armchair BEA is nurturing relationships, relationships with publishers, publicists, other bloggers and readers. After reading a few other posts, I decided to tell you all the things I do wrong so that you can benefit from my bad example and so that you can see that a book blog can be “successful” even if you do everything wrong. Confession time:
1. I don’t comment on other people’s blogs enough, and I don’t respond to comments on my blog as often as I should. I do most of my blog reading in Google Reader, and I only click through to the post to comment when I REALLY have something to say. I enjoy reading lots of posts, but I don’t always have anything to add. The same goes for responding to comments here on my own blog. If you made a wonderful and enlightening comment, I may appreciate it very much. In fact, I appreciate the “great post” kind of comments. However, I don’t have much to say in response. I do think this lack of conversational skills on my part is a failing. I’ll work on it.
2. I don’t respond to email pitches for ARC’s that I’m not interested in reading. A polite “no, thank you” would be a much better practice, but I haven’t gotten in the habit yet.
3. I don’t read and review all of the unsolicited books I receive. I sometimes don’t even review the books I agreed to take under consideration for review. I try not to feel guilty about this. I don’t review books that I just didn’t like. I tell myself that authors and publishers would rather I didn’t write a negative review of a book that they sent me for free. But maybe they would rather get some mention instead of silence.
4. I forget to send the publicist or the publisher a link to my reviews. My organizational skills used to be a lot better. My memory used to be a lot better. Now half of the time I can’t remember where I got the book in the first place. So I read a lot and review almost everything I read (unless I hated it). I trust the authors, the readers, and the publicists to find the reviews if they’re interested. I know that it would be more neat and clean if I notified people about my reviews, but this blogging gig isn’t a paying job for me. So I do what I can.
5. I’ve lost my Kindle charger, so I can’t read the Net Galley review copies that I requested until I get a new charger. I wonder if that is making someone somewhere unhappy.
6. I sometimes go around leaving comments, flogging the Saturday Review of Books because I like having all sorts of book bloggers come to my place on Saturday and leave links to their reviews. If this meme-promotion annoys you, I apologize.
So, folks, don’t do as I do. Or do you think any of the above are acceptable habits for bloggers who want to nurture community but just run of of time, memory, and organizational abilities?
Happy Book Blogging to all, and don’t forget to leave a link to your book reviews at the Saturday Review of Books. I’ll (try to) catch you in the comments.
=D I got a kick out of this post.
I suppose I don’t do everything right. Honestly, I didn’t find actually attending BEA to be terribly enlightening which is a minority opinion. I’m kinda shy and quiet in a large crowd though and prefer small gatherings, which probably had something to do with it. (Jennifer was much more talkative and outgoing. I could have been content following her around everywhere. HA!)
I do e-mail publishers back and politely decline the pitches and I keep everyone’s e-mails so that I can reply and say, “My review link is up!”
I am being more choosy about where I leave comments, simply for time’s sake. But I do try to faithfully leave comments to the same people because I’ve connected with them in some way. Sometimes, as you say, there isn’t much to add to what’s been said. Glad you don’t mind the “Great post!” comment. 😉
Oh, Carrie, I really appreciate ALL of your comments. I feel as if we do have a “connection”, and you are one of the many bloggers that I would love to meet someday. We could talk about Narnia and homeschooling and picture books and homeschooling and Texas and who-knows-what-else.
I think all of the above habits are more than acceptable. Blogging should be something we do because we enjoy it and because we like to write and think about books. The online community is fabulous but I think that just like in real life the relationships that develop over time from getting to know each other through reading and enjoying each other’s thoughts are more important than the commenting just to comment that sometimes goes on.
And although it might seem like shameless flattery I’ll say that your blog is one of the few that I enjoy and check daily. Although I comment a lot less. 🙂
Thanks, Alice. I agree that commenting just to comment is something I don’t have time to do, and I have developed some long-term blogger friendships just by being myself and “doing what comes nacherly.”
I almost left without commenting even after fessing up to the places I lurke yesterday promising to do better! I was nodding my head while reading your post as I have done the same things. I have never received an unsolicited books, how does that happen? How would they get your address?
I don’t know exactly. I think I have participated in some awards stuff, like the Cybils, or done some reviewing that was a response to a solicitation, and so the publisher or publicist got my address.
Thanks for coming by, Nise, and for commenting :), setting a good example for me.
What I do wrong is not read enough and take too long to get reviews written. So don`t feel bad.
Oh, well, you pretty much have me pegged on all of these. I comment more now than I used to because I have an iPod and wireless network and a nursing baby whom I rock a lot. I’ll go back to commenting less once he’s weaned.
You know I live your blog, Sherry. 🙂
Love, not live, though I do think we have a lot in common.
I don’t respond to email pitches for ARC’s that I’m not interested in reading. -> Me too! I think I’d feel worse if I had to send a “No, thank you” reply instead of just ignoring the email because what if the author replies back to try and convince me further? So for now, I think I’m sticking with not replying to the pitches that I’m not interested in.
I only reply to decline those who actually fit my review guidelines. If not, I figure if they don’t have time to read my guidelines, I don’t have time to reply to their email. It’s petty and passive aggressive, I know, but like you, I’m not making any money on this blogging thing.
With every point you make that you do wrong, I grinned. I do many things “wrong” too, and some are the same as yours.
I am not good with emailing publishers back if I don’t want to review the book, but the good thing for me is, I don’t receive too many pitches. I tend to not like that kind of pressure so when I take on a review it is because I pretty much know I will like the book; genre I like, author I am familiar with, etc. Also, when I read a book that I did get for free via the publisher or Netgalley and I don’t like it then I don’t review. I am not into negative reviews although I have written a few.
Comments; I try to comment on other blogs but find my time scarce so I usually limit it like you explained, and for those few whom I count as blogging friends (you know, email and stuff beyond blog comments) I also don’t mind a quick “great post” comment because it is telling me the person read the post. 🙂 hmm…maybe I should start doing a bit more “great post” comments on other blogs.
Blogging is meant for fun, for me. When I realize that I am stressing about it; posts, reading blogs, commenting…then I step back for a bit.
Again, you had me grinning, and for that…. Thank you.