Book Blogger Confessions #4: Social Networking with Authors

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!

Blogging about books is one of the best hobbies ever and it's incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its own particular challenges and issues, so we want to open up the conversation and talk about the stuff we normally keep to ourselves.

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/casual stalking. I see their tweets and blog posts and I love them like sisters and brothers. But I rarely comment on anything they say on Twitter or their blogs because I don't feel like I can develop a relationship without some sort of eventual fallout. I have to love them from afar. *pensive acoustic guitar music*

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

Book Blogger Confessions #3: Deadlines...How Do You Deal With Them?

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!

Blogging about books is one of the best hobbies ever and it's incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its own particular challenges and issues, so we want to open up the conversation and talk about the stuff we normally keep to ourselves.

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 6th: Deadlines for reviewing and blogging. Do you set them? How do you keep them? What do you do if you can't meet a deadline?

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Tiger's answer:

I set as few deadlines as humanly possible. This is because the more pressure I'm under to do something, the less likely I am to do it. In college, my best papers were written when I got the assignment a month ahead of time and breezed though it while feeling zero pressure to complete it. If I waited until I had an oppressive obligation, the result were not pretty.

It's the same thing with blogging. I essentially never agree to have a book reviewed by a certain day or month. If I'm part of a blog tour or hosting a guest post, I can keep to a schedule in that case, but in my opinion, deadlines are for the workplace. Book blogging is a rocking hobby that feels like a calling or vocation at times, but I still don't feel the need to make it fall under a strict, regimented schedule. I put up new posts when I have something I want to talk about, and that works well for me. :-)

When I miss deadlines? I apologize. I have definitely messed up a few times and forgotten to post a guest blog on the correct day, and there was nothing to do but post it late and apologize for causing an inconvenience.

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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 is February's second question if you want to get a head start: Feb20th: 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?

Book Blogger Confessions #3: Deadlines...How Do You Deal With Them? Link Free Download

Book Blogger Confessions: #2

Hi y'all! Welcome to the new 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!

Blogging about books is one of the best hobbies ever and it's incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its own particular challenges and issues, so we want to open up the conversation and talk about the stuff we normally keep to ourselves.

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 January 16th: Have you ever had reading/blogging slumps? How do you work through them or work around them?

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Tiger's answer:

Blogging slumps? Nevah. Reading slumps? Oh, yes.

Let me explain. I blog regularly religiously. I don't have hypergraphia, but I do have a consistent and relentless urge to write. I always want to write my opinions down and have them out on the internets, just for the sake of having a voice and sharing my thoughts, even if very few people read them. Sometimes I think that I'm dedicated to blog writing because I'm avoiding writing a book--it's my way of writing in a detailed, consistent manner without commiting to that book. So no true blogging slumps for me, ever. I always have something I want to say.

Reading slumps happen for me, but I scoot around them by switching genres. When I get tired of YA love triangles involving fallen angels, I stop reading paranormal YA for a while. When I'm worn out from delightful urban fantasy series that jump the shark somewhere around book 5 (and there are a projected 14 books...), I go elsewhere for a few weeks or months.

IMO, one of the troubles with reading slumps in book-blogging is that we're encouraged to find our "niche" and stick to it, and this niche can lead to reading fatigue. So you become the Contemporary YA Girl. The Urban Fantasy Lady. The Literary Fiction Guy. The Historical Romance Blogger. Most blogging advice posts I've seen advocate finding a very specific corner of the book world and consistently blogging about it. In most cases, this is a great idea. You have a clear area of expertise, so publishers know exactly what type of books to send you! Readers know how to find someone who's writing about the precise thing they want to hear about! You develop your own online "brand" and people get to know you better because of it.

And yet...what do you do when you get burned out on your own self-assigned genre? It does happen. And when you get a little weary of the tropes, plots, and themes of your genre, you can hit a long, hard slump. My solution to reading slumps is to blog about many genres. And I recently changed my blog name from "All-Consuming Books" to "All-Consuming Media" to reflect the fact that I review movies, music, and TV shows as well. Farewell, slumps! There's always something new to try. :-)

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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 February's two questions if you want to get a head start:

Feb. 6th: Deadlines for reviewing and blogging. Do you set them? How do you keep them? What do you do if you can't meet a deadline?

Feb20th: 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?

Book Blogger Confessions: #2 Link Free Download

Book Blogger Confessions: Week 1

Good morning! I'm kicking off the new 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!

Our first question is:

January 2nd: How has the "job" of book blogging changed your reading habits? Both pro and con.

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Tiger's answer:

Pro: For me, book blogging made me try so many new authors and new books I wouldn't otherwise have read. Blogger friends would loan me books or recommend books I'd never heard of, and it broadened my taste in ways that wouldn't have been possible if I'd just been browsing bookstores on my own, like in times past. Blogging gives your reading variety!

Con: Blogging has made me read a lot of not-so-awesome books. Due to blogging commitments like reviews I've agreed to do, I've often found myself struggling through a book that I did not like at all. The times when book-blogging has been the hardest for me were when I was reading my third or fourth "bad" book (meaning one that did not appeal to me) in a row, because I had commited to do a review. Sometimes, blogging mkes you spend a lot of time focusing on things you don't enjoy. Until you alter your review policy...

Pro: In a more noticeable way than 6 years of college education, blogging has given me critical thinking skills. Instead of reading a book and promptly forgetting about it, I have to assess it as I'm reading--"What are the main themes? What is the author trying to do, and are they successful in their attempt? What is the intended audience for this book, and how can I help the audience find the book?" Blogging makes you smarter!

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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 Books or For What It's Worth. Once your post is up feel free add a link to our post.

Alternately, you can comment on our posts once they're up."

Have fun confessing! :-)

This meme will be hosted twice monthly, on 1st and 3rd Mondays. Here is our next question, coming up in two weeks if you want to get a head start:

January 16th: Have you ever had reading/blogging slumps? How do you work through them or work around them?

Book Blogger Confessions: Week 1 Link Free Download