Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Redefining Yourself

. . . or in this case, myself.

I've seen a lot of posts lately about the book blog biz itself. A few years back, we were a new phenomenon and it was anything goes. Now things have settled, and a bunch of us are stepping back, taking a look at what we do, and going, "Okay, let's get some definitions in here, please." I've seen posts on chasing the next big title vs undiscovered gems, on unwanted ARCs, on blogger/author netiquette. Now here's my little contribution to our shared identity crisis.

I've been pouting a little lately because I don't get too many ARCs. Then I realized that my list of books to read, known to longtime readers as the Blue Journal of Books I Gotta Read Before I Die, already runs to three volumes. (I wish I was kidding about that.) And those are books I genuinely want to read based on recommendations from bloggers, parents, kids, other librarians, or even seeing them around and going, "Hmm, gotta read that someday."

Granted, there are ARCs I would sell extraneous organs for (ahemChasing Fireahem). On the other hand, there are plenty of books in my Blue Journal that I look forward to, no matter who else has read and reviewed and in some cases even given them medals. And if the Next Hot Book is really all that, I'll get to it in time.

One of the shared joys of librarianship and book blogging is that older titles and authors whose books don't get as much publicity get a chance in the spotlight. At a bookstore or in the review journals, it's all about the new and hot. But libraries and blogs have the chance to show off older titles or less well-known authors.

So I'm thinking of myself as a backlist blogger these days and I've stopped pouting. Just as there are millions of books and zillions of kids out there, there's a spot in the book blogging world for everyone.

4 comments:

Jen Robinson said...

Sounds reasonable to me, Maureen. The upside of backlist blogging is that it's a lot less guilt-inducing. I mean, I have books that I received as ARCs that I haven't read yet that are now out in paperback, and I feel guilty about those books... But if you just see a book at the library, one you've heard about and wanted to read, and you pick it up and read and review it, then it doesn't much matter when the ARC came out, does it?

MotherReader said...

I'm not on publishers lists for ARC's - except Random House somehow who true to their name sends me random items at random times. I decided early on that it was too much pressure and not worth the early reads or the free books. Now I gotten my free book fix on being a Cybils panelist. I'll also pick up ARC's at ALA or BEA if I happen to go. Sometimes I'll accept a author's request to send me a book. And once in a great while I'll write an author or publisher when I am pretty darn sure that I'll read, like, and remember to review the book.

Trisha said...

I agree with everything that's been said here.

What I perhaps didn't make clear in my post is that I don't get many ARCs. Not as few as MR, but definitely not in Jen Robinson or, say, Reviewer X, territory. It's maybe 5/month, but I would say that, most months, probably 4 are titles I wouldn't go out of my way to seek out as ARCs, but when offered, I think, "Oh, that sounds interesting. Sure, I'll give it a try." So it's not a big number at all, but the cumulative effect of, having accepted them, feeling that I needed to give them reading priority *over* books I really did/do want to read is what I was trying to articulate.

Granted, there are ARCs I would sell extraneous organs for (ahemChasing Fireahem). On the other hand, there are plenty of books in my Blue Journal that I look forward to, no matter who else has read and reviewed and in some cases even given them medals. And if the Next Hot Book is really all that, I'll get to it in time.You just summarized exactly what I was trying to say, in a way that made a lot more sense. And was a lot shorter. :)

Trisha said...

Forgot to include this in my last comment:

I don't know if you read Mrs. Giggles' blog, but she recently blogged about what happened to online book discussion? As in, what happened to discussion about books, instead of blog reviews and short "Yeah, this book rocked!" or "You're nuts, this sucked" comments? One of the points mentioned in the comments was that it's hard to start a discussion *about* a book and people's reaction to it if the review is prepub. So I think there are advantages to waiting until a book is actually available in stores/libraries to review it. (Assuming, of course, that people will leave meaty comments once they've managed to read the book. I feel a new blog resolution coming on.)