Welcome to Book Blogging 101, a weekly feature on Parajunkee’s View that answers your questions and strives to share great book blogging tips and some helpful hints to help you on your way.
From what I know there isn’t a comprehensive listing of publisher contacts. I’m sure if anyone did that they wouldn’t be sharing it. All I can say is look. They are on the websites. I only know of one major publisher that just has a fax number for review requests. You find out who the publisher of the book you want to review — you go to their web site and you find the contact email…. it might take a few minutes of digging, but the information is not hidden. Here is some visual stimulation…
The best way to get ARCs is to go to a convention that a publisher will be exhibiting at, or another similar marketing event. ARCs are used for marketing purposes so they give them out like you would give out pens at other conventions. If you can’t make it to a convention you should request them through the publisher. Some would say go through the authors, but they have limited amounts, so your best bet is to go through the publishers. Rough estimate is 4 – 6 months before the release date send them an email. See prior question.
It’s a CSS code, most use the blockquote function which is the ” icon in your blogger interface. You need to style your blockquote in the CSS of your template.
Let’s look in this testing site that I did for Maria’s Musings…as you can see she has a very stylized blockquote.
Go into template designer (in the design area of your blogger interface) and then click on ADVANCED > ADD CSS
Each indented input modifies your blockquote, everything from font size, to rounding the corners, to the space between the lines of the text. I’ve even added a text shadow. Good Luck!
You might have already answered this question in a previous post, but I just now recently had this happen to me. I consider my book review blog to be an eclectic mix of different genres for review. My reading taste changes daily. Some days I will read nothing but young adult, then other days it is nothing but adult romance or paranormal, etc.
I recently reviewed and erotica on my blog. I even added a button at the top of the post stating that it was an 18 and over review. Then a few hours later I received a horrible email from an anonymous reader of my blog snapping at me for reviewing an adult themed book on my blog. I never made my blog just young adult themed. I am a reader who enjoys all genres of books and I started my blog as an outlet to express that.
My question is how would you handle this situation? Should I just ignore it and continue on with running my blog how I want — reading and reviewing what I choose? Or should I cave and just stick to one genre for reviews? – Amy
People love to criticize don’t they? You run your blog how you want, if people don’t like it they don’t have to read it, right? I get crappy emails sometimes, I even have people telling me how to run things. I usually just ignore them. Bug off {that is a nice way of saying it}. If you are really concerned about reader perception of erotica, do a reader poll. Most readers, even teen readers read cross genre and cross age range. Unless your blog caters to teens and tweens specifically, I would say don’t worry about it. You’ve never stated that you are a young adult book blog, basically this particular reader has their panties all in a twist. Maybe they should read more erotica, might give them a bit of release.
This had me in stitches. I’ve told them, the truth, if they email me about the review. Now – here is where I differ. If I managed to read enough to give it a review ( 2/3rds ), I will write the review and casually send them the link. You asked for it right? If it is so bad of a DNF I didn’t even get in enough to write a review, I tell them. “Sorry, I wasn’t able to finish the book, there will be no review. If you want I can post the synopsis, but I will state that the book was a DNF.” They usually reply with a “don’t bother”. But, I do get your reticence. I have a children’s book, well I thought it was a children’s picture book that I got for the baby blog that I post on every now and again. The book is just bizarre. It’s written like an adult book, but supposedly geared for the age 5 -7 range. When I’m saying written like an adult book, the little girl talks about mortgages and book agents and adult things like that. Odd. Or I guess they were trying to be different. I tried reading it aloud to my daughter and she kept stopping me every other sentence saying, “what is that?” Try explaining a mortgage to a 4 year old, or an editor (explaining the editor, not explaining an mortgage to an editor). In all honesty I want to tell the publicist, “what were they thinking?” but I guess that would be rude. What it is really making me actually do, is power through, finish the book and lay it out in a review. 😉
I can’t get to all the questions, but please ask your BB101 Questions here…bring it on.
Awesome answers! Especially to the blogger who reviewed an erotica. Like you said, your blog, your content.
The part about reviewing DNFs was especially interesting to me. In the case of only being able to get through, maybe, three chapters, I’m curious if you think it’s worth it to post the novel info on the blog, then write a mini-review about what was so bad in those opening chapters and why you couldn’t finish it, or do you prefer to not waste any more time on those bad books?
Smiles!
Lori
I added the HTML code for blockquote, but I can’t figure out how to round out the edges? Is there something else I’m suppose to add to the style sheet or do I need to change the number on something?
Informative as always! Oh it must be so hard when you end up hating the book!!!
Pabkins @ Mission to Read
I had the same problem for some of the books I’ve read. If someone is really pestering me about a review, sometimes I’ll post a negative review and then not send them the link, because that usually means they’re checking my blog themselves by that time, and they’ll find it themselves.
Another thing to do is simply write them a very nice email saying the book really wasn’t for you, and it would be better promotion for you NOT to review it.
I’ve just started my own blog, and I like to read a variety of genres too, including erotica. And I was also worried whether or not I should post erotica reviews on it. But after reading your post, I’m gonna run my blog the way I like it, erotica and all. (I’ll be sure to post on warnings on those particular reviews though. I haven’t thought of that idea.)
Also, cool CSS trick. I might have to use that sometime.
Great tips as always Parajunkee. Just wanted to add a tidbit to your post. I am sure you get tired of people asking the same question about getting books to review. Something I have found out is that there are plenty of authors on Goodreads begging people to review their books. Yes you might read some books that aren’t top notch but then you might be surprised too. Everyone has to start somewhere. Plus these authors may be on their way to something great and your reviews and blog posts might be a stepping stone. Wouldn’t it be great if you helped an author publicize their first book and then they hit it big. Also there are so many blogs out there that tend to do posts on the same book at the same time. Take a chance be different.
Thanks so much for sharing that code. 🙂 I’ve wanted to add that to my blog for ages and had no idea what it was. I have it on there now and set to go with my color scheme. That totally made my day. 🙂
I’ve also been wondering what to do when a book annoys me to no end. I’m not afraid to write negative reviews but some books are just not worth it.
“Maybe they should read more erotica, might give them a bit of release.”
Lol. While I personally don’t read erotica, I couldn’t care less if other bloggers do or if they review those books. It’s their choice and their blog, especially if the blogger has never stipulated that it’s totally YA.
I can’t believe someone would send a scathing email about it. … Scratch that, yes I can. Some people just have nothing better to do than to tell others what to do and how to do it. Oh, and how they’re living their life is a total waste. Those people can just go to Hell for all I care.
Great answer to Amy’s question!
love your blog, just wanted to say that I’M your newest follower, and if you have time to follow back, thanks so much
I know it’s difficult to tell whether you will like a book or not just based on the cover or the blurb, but when you get a review request you need to think about it before accepting. Sometimes you can read a sample of the book online or maybe read previous reviews. The thing is that once you accept the book, at least in my opinion, you at least should give it a fair chance. One thing is to DNF a book halfway through, and another to give up after the first two pages. To me accepting review request gives you an obligation, not to finish it or to like it, but to give it a try and offer your honest opinion, if you only read a few pages you can’t really offer an explanation of why you didn’t like it enough to finish it beyond saying that it was bad. A review that only says “this book was bad” is not really helpful for the reader.
I’ve been there, though. I’ve accepted books that I probably wouldn’t have finished otherwise, but I think since I’m getting the book for free, and no one forced me to accept it, then I at least should try to read the whole thing. And if I can’t finish it, then I need to write a detailed DNF review explaining why.
It’s snowing!!
Thanks for the code advice. I’m not sure I want rounded edges or a shadow right now but it’s nice to know how to do it for future reference.
The lessons I learned this week: 1. People do not read or follow directions. 2. People like to criticize.
You put both of those together, and you’re going to have a lot of people who think they know what you should be doing with your blog and who are generally very wrong or, at the very least, clueless about what works and what doesn’t.
I agree with you, Parajunkee. If it were my blog, I’d just ask them not to read the review if it offends them. Having a warning or a button in the review should be good enough. Though I know that sometimes pictures don’t show up in my Google reader, so…if it were me, I’d probably include an additional written warning about 18+.
That’s too bad! I review everything too, including erotica. I agree, if the blogger wants to post it (and hey, she did include an 18+ advisory) she should post it.
“Maybe they should read more erotica, might give them a bit of release.”
lmao. That’s awesome. Totally.
♥ Sarah @ I’m Loving Books