I’m not one of those people…
…who easily boycotts an author (or publisher) just because of perceived or real asshattery. Usually my response is just to keep it in mind, keep paying attention, and downgrade the author/books involved to “buy used” status.
Of course there are thing that bother me. Now that it’s been a month or two, I want to talk about one of them.
I understand that anyone with a blogger account can call themselves a book blogger these days. And of course I don’t expect everyone to know who I am as a reviewer/editor. But Monster Librarian is a pretty legit site, and we specialize in informing librarians and booksellers, who are the people who readers go to face to face when they’re looking for books. Furthermore librarians often purchase multiple copies of books, and school librarians (to which we know we are a valuable, trusted resource for) often recommend books for reading and teaching in classes, which is probably the primary source for reading material for most people in America.
Not only that, but as it turns out our second largest readership appears to be teens flocking to our YA section. (I say appears because, we focus way more on acquiring information & materials to use than making a business out of it.)
Anyway, I know that we’re all legit and hard working, and we love authors (many of us are authors). So it confuses me when I send out a review request and get no answer at all.
But more than that it confuses me when I send out review requests and am then told not “I’m sorry I don’t have ebook or print copies to share” but “You can review my book when you buy it from XYZ location.”
Here’s a secret, it’s very common for us to buy copies of books just to support the author/publisher. It’s very common for us to send in reviews of books we would have bought anyway. And most of us (actually all of us that I know of) feel extra responsibility to review–and review well and timely–books that were given to us for free. Now, of course we fail, because right now I’ve read about 56 books for the year, which is about the same number of books I have sitting on my self that were given to me for review (and that’s not counting books given to me for crit, or as gifts, or books I bought for myself because I wanted to read them. Or books thrust upon me by a friend squeeing “You have to read this”, but more on that later this week.)
I get that we’re not PW or Kirkus, or even Dear Author or Locus. But it’s easy to prove that we’re legit. We’re avid readers who are volunteering hundreds of hours a month to books because we love them.
Luckily there are only a handful of publishers and authors who have responded this way, but I can’t but put them in my “decline to read” category.
Really, I’m not trying to guilt or shame anyone (which is why you’re not going to get names out of me). We understand print books cost money, which is why we’ve moved to accept ebooks. And we understand that not everyone has ebook copies (or print) to give out, and what copies they do have are limited. But there’s a difference between “I’m sorry, I don’t have any review copies to give” and “Go buy it yourself.”
If you can’t try to pleasantly respond to fans (understanding is given for jerks) then just opt to not respond at all, please. Silence is much better than your readers feeling like you’re nothing but a wallet to be milked.
P.S. And it’s even worse if after a week or a month you jump on a forum ranting about how unfair it is that reviewers want free copies and bookstores want returns and why won’t people just spill out the money you deserve for your books instead of demanding…like…quality and civility and all that bull.
