Hi y'all! Welcome to the blogger meme I'm co-hosting with my friend Karen at For What It's Worth Reviews. It's time to open up and share (and vent) about our blogging experiences!
Guidelines: Do not criticize other bloggers or authors in your post or in the comments! We're here to support each other.
All right, then. Let's start confessing! :-) Our current question is:
For February 20th: Social networking with authors: Do you interact on Twitter/Facebook/etc with authors? Does it affect how you review their work or do you look at their books differently because you're on friendly terms with them?
(Question suggested by Andrea The Bookish Babes)
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Tiger's answer:
Yes, knowing that authors will read my work does affect how I review. My negative views become milder, and I go about my review writing in a sweeter, intentionally non-offensive manner when I know that an author has a good chance of seeing my review on Twitter or even just while surfing for reviews of their own work. Because I know that I'll run into this messy issue, I've come up with some coping strategies:
1. I don't make Author-friends. Don't get me wrong, I want author-friends. Badly. I can think of 20+ authors off the top of my head who are smart, funny, friendly and generally awesome people. These are the kind of folks you want to associate with! I want to talk to them, I want to support their work, and I want to exchange emails/phone calls/Christmas cards/
2. I only tweet about a book once it's reviewed. I'm taking a page from Karen's book, here. :-) We've both learned that if you tweet, "I'm starting Such-and-Such, yay!" or "Ooh, I'm loving the heroine in Such-and-Such!" the author will most likely find the tweet and retweet it or reply directly. That can cause problems if the reviewer gives up on reading the book (I do this all the time) or if the book in any way takes a turn for the worse. The author is left expecting further discussions or praise or publicity, and you have gone suddenly silent.
An important note on my coping strategies:
I haven't really met any rude authors. My non-friending and careful-tweeting policies are just the result of me trying to spare anyone from hurt feelings or disappointed expectations after they've worked so hard on their fiction. I'm not avoiding discussions with authors because I'm afraid of their behavior or because I think I'll get burned by them--I just want to minimize the chances for strained author/blogger relationships.
I'd like to add that I know of many bloggers who can manage good friendships with authors, and I'm all for it! It just hasn't been something I've been able to do.
Sooooo...How do you interact with authors? Can you manage a friendship and still review their work? Let me know how you do it!
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To participate in the meme:
If you want to participate just grab our button and include it in your post with a link to either Tiger's All Consuming Media or For What It's Worth.
Join in the meme and link your post up below or leave a comment!
Feel free to suggest future topics you want to see discussed.
Have fun confessing! :-)
This meme will be hosted twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Mondays. Here are the March questions--
March 5th: Let's talk about a positive aspect of blogging! How has blogging influenced your real life in a positive way? (not related to books or reading) Have you learned to be organized or are you more social now for example?
March 19th: Everyone LOVES that book! Why don't I? How do you handle being the one reviewer who doesn't like a book that's taking the blogosphere by storm? Do you write a review? Pretend you didn't read the book?
Link your post!
Book Blogger Confessions #4: Social Networking with Authors Link Free Download
