If all goes according to plan, my next foray into publishing will be in the YA market. So a few months ago, I began poking around on YA book blogs, and I liked what I saw. There's a lot of energy and love in the book blogging world. Some book bloggers are authors, too. And some aren't.
The new model of publicity at publishing houses relies heavily on book bloggers to get the word out. It's not uncommon for a publisher to offer 100 ARCs or egalleys to bloggers. If you're an author who hopes to be on the other side of this transaction someday, it sure doesn't hurt to see the process in motion.
Because I don't have the time and energy to start my own book blog and give it the attention it needs, I found two book blogs which were willing to take me on as a contributor. These days I'm writing reviews for The New York Journal of Books and also for The YA Sisterhood. Each has a very different tone, and I love both of them.
Book blogging has led me to learn:
- The ins and outs of NetGalley
- How Eidelweiss/Above the treeline works (another electronic galley delivery system)
- How publicists reach out to the blogging community
- The many variations of publicist pitches
In short, book blogging means that you're not just asking questions about the publicity process, you're experiencing it every week.
And the big bonus? As a reviewer, I have access to most any YA book several months before its publication date. I've never been so up on current releases as I am now.
As Spiderman would say, with great power comes great responsibility. Each book sent to me by a publisher deserves a thoughtful review from me. And this gets sticky if I don't like the book. But there's always something nice to say, and there's always a diplomatic way to express your frustrations.
And when something great comes along, I read it early. And that never gets old.
Sarah Pinneo is a novelist, food writer and book publicity specialist. Her most recent book is Julia’s Child. Follow her on twitter at @SarahPinneo.
1 comment:
I have a huge respect for book review bloggers. They do so much to promote MG and YA books.
I do promote authors and their books so use NetGalley and Edelweiss some. I'm not blogging more than 2 days a week so don't have the pull to get all the hot new titles, especially in print version. It got to be too much work e-mailing editors for them, so I quit doing that awhile ago. And I understand the more popular blogs get first dibs on them.
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