{"id":1082,"date":"2011-08-22T08:41:36","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T12:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2011-08-22T08:43:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T12:43:35","slug":"the-writer-blogger-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/miscellaneous\/the-writer-blogger-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writer-Blogger Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A year and a half ago, people who wrote blogs about books seemed mysterious, organized, technologically savvy, funny, creative, opinionated, and distant to me.\u00a0 I was surprised and grateful when any of them reviewed my novel positively, and I learned quickly to stop reading when a review was meh<\/em> because it stung.\u00a0 As a few bloggers began to contact me about interviews and as I emailed a handful to thank them for their kind words, I discovered some incredibly nice, generous people who love books as much as I do.<\/p>\n

The good thing is, I feel like I have more nice friends.\u00a0 The bad thing is, their opinions matter more to me now that I know them, so part of me squirms knowing that my publicist has been sending out review copies of Prized<\/em>.\u00a0 I hope the bloggers will remain as honest as they were the first time around.\u00a0 I also can\u2019t help hoping they like my book. \u00a0There\u2019s the rub.<\/p>\n

The writer-blogger connection makes me question whether a blogger can be impartial once he or she knows a little of the writer behind the book, and if that compromises reviews.\u00a0 Is it possible to say something nasty about a friend\u2019s latest book?\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 Yet if nastiness isn\u2019t possible, the positive comments aren\u2019t credible anymore, either.<\/p>\n

With hired reviewers selling fake reviews<\/a> to the likes of TripAdvisors and Amazon at $5 to $10 a pop, I\u2019m feeling shaken with new distrust.\u00a0 I want to be able to believe genuine people like me are sharing honest opinions, with nothing motivating us but goodwill and concern for our fellow consumers or readers.\u00a0 As a reader, I want the purity of the unbiased review.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read that a positive or a negative review in the New York Times<\/em> can make a measurable short-term impact<\/a> on a book\u2019s sales, but beyond that, it\u2019s hard to be convinced any single review has much influence.\u00a0 When bloggers reach 100-2,000 followers at a time, the power of bloggers lies in their collective ability to spread awareness and a general impression of a book.\u00a0 Even though one blogger alone in this buzz may have a very small voice, the integrity of all the bloggers, with the grass-roots, free-speech, devil-may-care honesty and humor that abound, is what we value.<\/p>\n

That honesty is what I don\u2019t want to undermine.\u00a0 So I\u2019m adding my honesty, my own disclaimer, to the mix.\u00a0 It\u2019s preposterous to think I would ever pay for a positive review.\u00a0 I\u2019d never trade my friendship for a positive review, either.\u00a0 Yet at least a subtle influence seems unavoidable when there’s a writer-blogger connection. \u00a0Over this past year, more than once, I\u2019ve ended up having funny, friendly exchanges with bloggers behind the scenes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve discovered several of them are writers, too, and they get what I\u2019m going through while I\u2019m working.\u00a0 We like each other.\u00a0 They matter to me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had kind, unexpected emails arrive just when I\u2019m pulling out my hair with gnarly revisions, and these notes make me think There\u2019s hope.\u00a0 All I can do is my best.\u00a0 I just have to keep trying.<\/em><\/p>\n

My blogger friends make me a better writer.\u00a0 If our friendships also influence their reviews of my books, maybe it\u2019s because we\u2019re human. \u00a0However, knowing that my friends are people I respect, I suspect I\u2019m due to read some pretty honest reviews.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s why I\u2019m squirming.<\/p>\n

Many thanks to my blogger friends, especially Steph of Steph Su Reads<\/a>, Kari of A Good Addiction<\/a>, Enna of Squeaky Books<\/a>, Precious of Fragments of Life<\/a>,\u00a0 Katie of Mundie Moms<\/a>, Georgia of Eve\u2019s Fan Garden<\/a>, Rachael of The Book Muncher<\/a> and most recently, Katie of Simply Kate<\/a>, who shot this unbelievably sweet YouTube review<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019m delighted to count you my friends. \u00a0You certainly don’t need me to tell you: go ahead and be honest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year and a half ago, people who wrote blogs about books seemed mysterious, organized, technologically savvy, funny, creative, opinionated, and distant to me.\u00a0 I was surprised and grateful when any of them reviewed my novel positively, and I learned quickly to stop reading when a review was meh because it stung.\u00a0 As a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1093,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}