Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading Blog Tour: Guest Blog by Darcy and Charity

Can We Talk?

No really, can we? Or maybe the better question is…should we? There’s been some drama in the book blog world lately. It started at BEA with a panel discussion of bloggers regarding their relationships with publishers, publicists and authors. Later, someone blogged about it (of course) and (this is the internet, so) someone else misconstrued the comments. You can probably guess where things went after that. (Handbasket, meet Hell.)

There were some pretty fiery opinions thrown down and some flaming comments to go with them. In the midst of the heat storm, a lot of really interesting questions came up. One of the topics that grabbed our attention was:

Should authors try to establish relationships with bloggers?

Here’s the Geek Girls’ take on that question: We. Don’t. Know.

As new authors, it’s really exciting to find our book mentioned on a blog. It’s a natural reaction (we think) to want to interact with the blogger, to thank them for acknowledging our existence and, when they’ve given us a great review, to thank them.

But.

Does contacting a blogger (to offer an ARC, comment on a book mention – or on another blog post of theirs) put unfair pressure on the blogger to produce a positive review?

And.

If the review is already up, do comments by the author(s) crush any further discussion of the book? (Because, like an example given at another blog, you might think a baby is ugly -- but would you say that if you knew his mama could hear?)

The Geek Girls know that bloggers are important. They can help make or break a book – especially a book like ours that didn’t receive much attention from traditional book review outlets. We need bloggers to spread the word about The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading, but we want to play fair – we want to treat you ethically and with respect. So, if you bloggers and blog readers are ready to talk, the Geek Girls are poised to listen.

You can read about a couple of other blogger panels here: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6661691.html and here: http://freneticreader.blogspot.com/2009/05/ya-book-blogger-panel-sort-of.html

~ Darcy and Charity

I think that it's awesome when an author comments on a review I've written or really anywhere on my blog. I like the fact that they read my blog first of all, but second of all, that they want to talk. I think authors rock and I confess I do get all fangirlish at times when meeting authors or just chatting online with authors. In terms of the reviews, I try to be fair if I didn't like the book, because I know that my tastes are not everyone's taste. There are some books I read, but don't mention because I've forgotten that I've never mentioned them, or their more adult books that aren't particularly cross over books to YA lit, or that I didn't know what to say. And that happens sometimes- rarely, but it does. I don't know if authors NEED to establish relationships with bloggers, I just know that it makes me feel nice when they notice something cool (booktrailers made, flair made, or an awesome review).

~ yabooknerd

Speaking of awesome reviews: Read my review

Read more about the Geek Girl tour

Read Melissa Walker's cover story