Fusenews: Bacon and Blog Tours
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The bacon bookmark is a kind of an urban legend amongst librarians. I have a whole list of alternate blog names, but if I had to start one today I’d definitely call it The Bacon Bookmark. These other bookmarks aren’t quite as bad, but I’m glad to see that we’re not the only ones who deal with random ephemera of this sort . Thanks to Bookninja for the link.
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Abecedarian wonderment. The Children’s Literature Book Club has started an alphabet of characters from beloved books. Extra points for having Babymouse speaking German. Thanks to Jen Robinson for the link.
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If an when I get a car of my own I fully intend to listen to podcasts 24-7 on my long commutes. And while there are plenty of great podcast sites out there for children (note my blogroll’s list to the right here), I’d really prefer it of there were a blog out there that locates and posts random little podcasts that appear on our radar. Things like the BookExpo podcast of the Children’s Book and Author Breakfast . Which, once I get a spare minute, I full intend to listen to. Eoin Colfer is my audible hero.
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And finally, there’s a bit o’ controversy swimming about the blogosphere these days. A brouhaha, if you will. As far as I can ascertain, here’s where it all started. According to Jen Robinson , once upon a time there was a blogger by the name of Sally Apokedak who ran a blog called All About Children’s Books . She quit for a little while and has now started something called Kidzbookbuzz . Now the general idea, as I see it, is that she wants authors to pay her money to allow her to organize blog tours. Oh aye? Colleen Mondor, Kelly Fineman, and Big A little a have all already weighed in on why this is perhaps not the best idea in the world. Now I have participated in a blog tour that was organized by an author’s marketing department. In that particular case, though, I was asked beforehand if I was interested (I was and I liked that particular author’s newest book so I agreed to it). The problem with this new site is that it seems to make the assumption that all these bloggers (whoever they might be) would be willing to do unpaid (as far as I can tell) PR for any author. The concern of other bloggers is that this discredits our legitimacy and does more damage than good. What kind of integrity would we have if we reviewed positively for profit? It’s an interesting issue. Maybe one that was bound to come along at some point anyway. Yet as I see it authors, I think, would prefer to do their own blog tours or count on their marketing departments for that kind of thing anyway rather than pay cash for a service that many bloggers provide for free. Definitely check out the arguments on the subject, though.
Filed under: Fusenews
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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What hasn’t come up in those other posts is the fact that bloggers would merely be invited to participate in individual tours. The blogger decides which authors and which books. It’s not these bloggers will promote any and every author that pays $$$.
But shouldn’t that be mentioned on her website? The way it’s set up now it looks as if any author is immediately guaranteed a ton of bloggers. The answer to the question “How many bloggers will participate in my tour?” wasn’t “As many as are willing to interview you” but instead “That depends on how many bloggers you want and how many books your publisher is willing to mail out,” which is mighty misleading. It assumes that participating bloggers are all going to interview you. Now it does say that they won’t take any old author, so maybe that covers it right there. But how does the money change hands? Are the books sent and then the author pays when told that they are worth reviewing? Once you bring money into anything, things gets complicated and if the bloggers aren’t being paid… is that good or bad? Sticky stuff.