I don’t know if you know this about me … but I kind of fell into this book blogger thing mostly by accident. Basically, I didn’t take myself seriously for a while, simply using the blog as a place to post reviews of books I had purchased or borrowed because we all need an outlet right?
Then I did get serious about it. I started investing more time and money and making more of an effort to reach out to other bloggers and authors, book publishers and publicists and it’s been amazingly fun!
But, on occasion, all the time, I wonder what other bloggers out there are doing and it’s not like there’s a rule book on etiquette or anything that we can just reference. It’s hard to know what you’re supposed to do when you finally are doing this SRS BSNS.
Some of the random questions that flit through my mind regularly include (but are not limited to):
Am I supposed to send them a thank you email or tweet them a thank you?
Should I Instagram a picture or is that just considered bragging?
And if I do tag them in things do they get mad because it’s too much?
Then… should I post my review immediately after reading or do they want me to wait until closer to release?
Do I email a copy of the review to the publicity department or is simply tagging the publisher in a link to my review on twitter sufficient?
See… there are a million things that go through my mind (and I’m sure yours if you’re blogging) on what the etiquette is when working with publicity departments.
I took to twitter and asked my fellow blogger friends their opinion on one of these questions:
When you write a review do you email it to the publisher or do you simply tag them in your tweet?
Why did I ask this you might be wondering?
I noticed, and have noticed in the past but never really paid it any attention, that on each ARC I get there is a small note that says “please forward a copy of your review to blah blah blah”. Suddenly I wondered if I was doing something wrong all this time. Is this maybe why I don’t get books from certain publishers even when I ask nicely? Is this something I’ve been doing wrong FOR TWO WHOLE YEARS?
The short answer is no. I don’t think so.
The reason I say that is because the bloggers who responded to me all answered slightly different!
Sara at Forever 17 Books & Anna at Literary Exploration both said that yes for the most part they send them to the publishers email address…
while Jamie at The Broke and Bookish/Perpetual Page Turner doesn’t.
Jenna at Jenna Does Books and Jessica at Literary Etc both said they send reviews if they are working with a specific publicist that sent the book.
Kayla told me that she usually just tags them in the tweet when she’s promoting her post. (Which, by the way, is all I’ve really been doing!)
And Celeste at the Book Hookup said that it really just depends on the relationship she has with the publisher.
I guess the actual answer is that you have to do what is right for you. Which ultimately, is usually the answer to all the questions a blogger might have. What is right for one blog or blogger isn’t necessarily right for you, and if you want to continue to have fun doing this crazy stuff, then do what is most comfortable… unless, of course a publicist tells you specifically to do something, then do that.
Happy Friday!
Happy Friday!
Tell me your thoughts in the comments – Is there a certain way you handle your reviews? Or just say hi and tell me I’m not the only one who thinks about these things! LOL
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