Thursday, December 13, 2012

Notes From My Desk: On Integrity and Book Blasts



I was reading a post by Parajunkee that got me thinking: why do book bloggers do book blasts?  It is one thing if you’re getting paid (I understand money as a motivator), but a lot of us do blog posts about an upcoming book for free.  Is it for exposure for one’s blog?  Is it because one doesn’t have to think as much as a regular post?  I so far have not done a book blast with a group, but I have posted lists of upcoming books I want to read and participated in Waiting-on-Wednesday.  I’ve avoided doing a book blast because I personally feel kind of uncomfortable promoting a book I have not read.  There also seems to be something more official about doing a book blast versus posting what books you’re looking forward to reading and why.

I have done book tours where a group of bloggers all received a book to read for free, then post a review, but none explicitly stated that I had to post a positive review.  So I didn’t, necessarily.  I feel that signing up for positive-review-only-book-tours kind of degrades the integrity of the book blogger.  But I am still very new to book blogging, so maybe my opinions will change over time. 

Why should we promote a book that we don’t know for sure is as amazing as our promoting makes it out to be?  Is book blogging simply turning into free advertisement for publishers?  And if a book isn’t amazing, why should we promote it anyway and feed the ego of the author in question who may need to improve?  This is totally open to discussion in comments; I’m not just blogging so the internet can hear me think.  Please no flames.

 Thanks for reading,

6 comments:

  1. I've never thought about this. I have helped to promote books in the past and plan on participating on a few in the near future - but all of them I've read (as a beta) or am offered a free copy before hand. I totally understand your concern and have to agree. We wouldn't sign a petition or spread flyers for something we didn't believe in either, so why unknown books?

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    1. Exactly -- I think participating is great when you've had the opportunity to read the book and loved (or even just liked) it. It's a great tool for indie or unknown authors to get their book circling around the blogosphere. But the person promoting the book should have read said book. Does it really help the author if you're mindlessly promoting anyway? I guess it gets the books name around, and maybe that is the aim: to pass around flyers of a sort. According to Parajunkee, the people hosting book blasts and blog tours do get paid... I don't where I'm going with this anymore :/

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  2. I'm leery of the positive-review-only thing... As painful as I imagine negative reviews are, I hope I'll be able to *earn* positive reviews as a writer.

    Pre-release excitement seems like an entirely different thing to me. If you like the sound of a book, or have read an excerpt, or even just like the cover--or if you just want to talk about books that are coming out soon--that's not dishonest. Unless you're saying "Wow, best book ever!!!! Go buy it!" (maybe that's what book blasts are? Not sure...)--talking about a book as if you've read it when you haven't would be disingenuous and misleading, and silly.

    But if you're just promoting awareness, saying "Hey, I might give this a try, and you might be interested in it too," makes a lot of sense, and seems like a perfectly appropriate thing for book lovers to be communicating about. :)

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    1. I'm sure you'll earn lots of positive reviews! I can imagine negative reviews are super painful -- it's like telling someone you think their baby is ugly.

      Back to the topic! That was the impression I got from book blasts: that you simply received a blurb, a banner and were to promote the book, not necessarily with any original content of the blogger's own. But I only really looked into doing one book blast (though I agree with Parajunkee that they do seem to be everywhere).

      And I totally agree with your last point of recommending books that we're interested in. I think I like the more informal-ness of simple recommendations over joining a group of people with the official standpoint of backing a book commercially.

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  3. With things like Goodreads I have to wonder why we need book blasts in the first place. I mean before Goodreads? Sure. Now? Not so much.

    Since I'm not a blogger myself, if I visit a blog and I see one of them with no real original content attached I instinctively put the entire blog in question. I mean, I get it when someone is excited for a sequel or think it sounds awesome or even enjoys the eye-candy of a book cover... but otherwise it feels like free advertisement.

    I wonder if part of the reason is just to get hits or to enlarge their social circle. In that case it would make book blasts just a "thing to do." Maybe they're writers themselves and are trying to get in good graces with the publishers and other authors. If that's a case I understand as well. I don't agree... but I understand.

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    1. That was one of the things I was wondering: is it just a thing to do for book bloggers? Is it a way to get more hits, get in good graces with publishers, network with other authors? Networking with other authors if you were an author as well is the only one of that list where I could see it being appropriate. With authors, I know that it is extremely discouraged to put out scathing reviews as it is necessary to network. So are most book bloggers also authors? As for getting more hits and getting in good graces with publishers, I still think it's not appropriate.

      I think this has turned into a more complicated issue than I intended originally. Not saying that's bad, just surprising :P

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