Design credit: Emily of Emily's Reading Room
Today is all about asking questions to the experts in blogging. Hopefully experts find my blog and have some answers for me! My questions are mostly for all book bloggers, so I guess we're all experts today :o)
- What blogs do you go to for inspiration to keep blogging?
- How many books do you accept for review per week/month? How do you plan it out?
- Vlogs: yay or nay?
- What kinds of things do you like to giveaway on the blog? Have you ever had a giveaway with no entries?
As for a question I already asked during the Armchair BEA Twitter party last night and got some fab answers back.. check this out. I was curious because I'm bad at it. Here's what I got!
Q. How do you all say NO to an author/publisher when you don't want to accept their book for review?A. Most people said to be polite, give an honest excuse/reason (too busy, not interested), and offer to feature the author on the blog. I do a lot of the features already, but I normally accept the book for review and explain that it may take much longer than what my review policy states. I don't care if it's self-pubbed, and I'm definitely more apt to feature an author on my blog if they are self-pubbed to help get the word out. My problem is when I feature a book/author, finally get to the book, and I can't stand it or it's written poorly. So if I take this further.. I don't want to advertise stuff on my blog that I can't get behind, but is that my business? I just want to promote books, and if I don't like them when I review them, that's for the other readers to decide, right? Answers?! :o)
I hope everyone had a FANTASTIC time during Armchair BEA!! I know I did. Please don't forget to enter my giveaways! Debut Author giveaway and 1000 Follower giveaway. YAY!
so many questions =)
ReplyDeletePS I had loads of fun at the twitter party last night (I was @BurtonReview)
1. I haven't really been inspired about bloggin at all lately! (gasp!) Then the ArmchairBEA came along, and I am so glad, since it rejuvenated myself a bit. Felt the love, I guess, and glad to be a part of an awesome community.
2. I try to limit my accepts to a minimum, as I have to review for the HNS which has a deadline etc etc. SO I keep a spreadsheet, which also tells me if I have stuff from NetGalley to do also. (because those can get a lot backed up if you're not careful).
3. Vlogs may be fun for others, but not for me. I can't see any of my readers really caring too much if I did one or not. But I cruise the internet while at work, and I would be frightened if some sound came out of my puter which clearly was not Work related. So I can't really watch Vlogs.
4. Back in the day, I gave away book related items along with my books. But now (aside from me begging for entries with my Armchair giveaway).. now I am getting pretty disillusioned with the giveaway thing since it always seems to be the same old same old same old 'giveaway enterers' if you get my drift. So I have to wonder, do people enter giveaways to win books to turn around and sell them? Because sometimes these folks who enter my giveaways, I see them entering every giveaway everywhere else, and they never review a book. That really turns me off. I would prefer to send my books to bonafide book lovers whom I know would actually read the book and not sell it.
There's my answers for you!
Here's my post for today.
I’ve found that visiting blogs that are incredibly different from mine give me the best ideas. When someone is doing something vastly different from me, then I’m jolted awake and alert and can see things from a different perspective. So try visiting someone who reviews a completely different genre, or visit a non-book blog, for example.
ReplyDeleteI don’t accept any books for review so this isn’t applicable to me.
I don’t do vlogs but I enjoy them from time to time. I don’t think video is the best format for reviews, but they’re great for book shelf tours or book hauls.
I’ve never done a giveaway and it’d be awful to do one and get no entries! But I guess if you don’t try, then you’ll never know. I just think that the books I’d give away wouldn’t interest anyone so I never know what to do about that. Should you only give away new books? I’m still figuring this out…
You want honest answers right?
ReplyDeleteI use blogs that are in any other niche EXCEPT books for inspiration. There are times that I feel that we book bloggers are too closeted and tend to do only what another book blogger has done. Reading design, gardening, problog, crafts, whatever inspires me to try to infuse new things in the book blogging world.
(That being said, I am in a huge slump lately and haven't done much of anything)
I review anywhere from 4 to 6 new books a month for a paper review publication and usually fit the ARCs for the blog and other personal reading around that. I limit ARCs to 4 to 6 a month as well and hope for the best.
Because we live in a rural area with turtle-slow internet, not a huge fan of vlogs, either making them or viewing them. I know that I am in the minority with that.
Giveaways are fun to win, but not a vital part of blogging for me. Having them stresses me out!
Committing to go all out in order to promote an unknown author's book before you have read it is risky. 99% of self-published or indie writers are wonderful to work with, but it is that 1% that make me buy tin-foil hats.
I hope that you enjoyed the week as much as I did:)
I don't have a formal number of review copies I'll accept per month. I read 2-3 books per week so I try to keep that number in mind when I accept review copies, though sometimes I go overboard. I also read a lot of netgalleys, and I'm trying to figure out a system for reviewing that website other than clicking "request" for everything that looks interesting. That's how my tbr gets too high.
ReplyDeleteI don't produce or watch vlogs. I read a whole lot faster than you talk and I'm not going to wait around for video to load nor to watch you spend five minutes saying what I could have read in one.
As far as giveaways, I've pretty much quit doing them. They weren't drawing new readers,so I didn't see the point. I don't generally enter giveaways because I have enough other books to read. If I do enter, it is one or two easy entries, not the hop all over the interent types.
This sounds like a fun meme. It's true that the sidekicks never get enough credit. I need to read this book so bad. It's been on my tbr list for a long time now.
ReplyDelete