There’s still no official theme, so this week I’m going to take a chance on being curmudgeonly. Here’s ten things that annoy me about being a book blogger!
- When people don’t comment back, ever. Sometimes, there just isn’t something that they want to comment on, or they’re too busy for a week or two. I totally get that. But if they never drop by in return, it feels totally one-sided — like I’m a number that helps them get ARCs or whatever, but they’re not willing to put in any effort to make a real link between us.
- When people comment without reading. I know that when it’s a big link-up like Stacking the Shelves or whatever, people mostly drop by to get visits in return, so they often copy/paste “looks like a great haul!” and a link to their own post. Or “looks like you got a ton of books!” I can get that, but I wish people would put at least a little effort in — don’t tell me I got a ton of books when the text of the post says clearly that those are the books I read this week. I always try to say something about the books they’ve got, or the life updates in their post!
- Snobbery. It’s okay to have reading preferences, obviously, and even to comment about why you don’t enjoy x or y. But if you’re only coming by to link your blog, and you say things like “I never read fantasy, it’s all too childish”… well, it doesn’t sound good (and you look silly, since there’s a ton of adult fantasy).
- Spam. Why do I get so much spam?! The number one target review seems to be one of my Susanna Kearsley reviews, and I don’t get it at all.
- When I get spammed by my own copy. I mean, I’m a copywriter. It makes sense that sometimes I might run into stuff I wrote the advertising for. But it just feels beyond rude when it shows up in the comment spam on my WordPress. One, hey! I didn’t write that for you to spam with! And two, oi, spam filter — are you saying my writing looks like spam?! And three, this is a book blog, so why are you targeting it with copy about picture frames and saving whales?
- People making assumptions. When a blogger assumes I’m not a writer, or I don’t read x genre, or that I’m a certain age… Don’t assume, guys, you know who it makes an ass out of.
- “I prefer real books.” Ebooks are real. They’re different, and maybe they don’t work for you, but hey. Ereaders help all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons.
- People who openly tell authors they’ve pirated their books. Why? Why would you do that? Authors have a right to earn a living, and “exposure” doesn’t pay for food.
- People tagging authors in bad reviews. Unless there’s some prior relationship there or the critique is something they might benefit from, why would you do that? And don’t do that even given that if the person who wrote the review doesn’t say it’s okay. Some people don’t want to interact with the author.
- Authors commenting on my reviews of their book to argue with me. Most often, it’s male science writers who feel the desperate need to tell me I’m wrong about their book, so you’ll have to excuse the sinking feeling I get when I realise a given comment is from an author. I’ve had some great interactions with authors I’ve critiqued — Tony Hays, author of The Killing Way and the rest of that series, would be one example. But mostly it just doesn’t work out.
I’m sure that I could be hoist by my own petard for some of these, because I can be a cranky snob as much as anyone. I try and keep a lid on it, though.
What’re your pet peeves?
I love this post! For me blogging is about interaction so if a blogger likes comments from us but never comments back, it is a bit pointless…and kind of selfish! It feels like I’m wasting precious blogging time on someone who doesn’t care so I totally agree on that. I also agree about not reading before commenting. I’ve seen your frustration over stacking and unstacking posts! *grins* I find that when I write on my low star reviews when I read the book (which is usually months before I get it reviewed!) someone always says they hope my next read is better! Yet I’d read about forty books since then! It does get frustrating! I hate book snobbery…if you have a genre you love that entertains you, nobody has the right to say that the genre is crap. I don’t like and don’t read a lot of genres but I don’t think anyone reading them is in some way inferior or dumb or something! I find that rude and I hate it when someone sneeringly posts a comment on my blog saying ‘how can you possibly enjoy THAT?’ or ‘how can you say you hated my favourite book?’ Agree with nine and ten two.
chucklesthescot recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday
Book snobbery is my least favourite, I think. Like… why police what other people enjoy?!
Nikki recently posted…WWW Wednesday
Interesting what you say about spam in what does and doesn’t apply to me. It bugs me that I’ve had way more spam comment than genuine ones (half the genuine ones being my responses to those comments) and it bugs me that I’m getting ten or more day in, day out (at least they’re being picked up and filtered away). Luckily I don’t have my own copy spouted back at me, just the usual porn sites and sportswear links.
I confess I’m a regular ‘liker’ but not a commenter: I like the range of what you cover and your insightful remarks but as not all of our reading overlaps I rarely have anything useful or even intelligent to add. That’s not to say I don’t take note of your overall take on authors, genres and subjects.
Chris Lovegrove recently posted…Blogs I follow (1)
I don’t mind people who don’t comment much as long as they’re not demanding comments from me, you know? I’ve been following your reviews for… how long? We’ve interacted. There are some blogs where I’ve commented a ton and never got anything back, though, and it feels… discouraging.
Nikki recently posted…WWW Wednesday
Oh my goodness, number 9 is terrible. Why would people do that? And with reviews that aren’t even their own? (which somehow makes it feel 10x worse to me) It’s akin to walking up to someone and getting up in their face to tell them they suck. Is it just to make people feel bad, I just don’t know….
And I typically don’t mind authors replying in comments, though it doesn’t happen a lot, and when it does it’s more often a thank you to a positive review – in which case, I’m actually really happy and flattered they took the time to stop by! I’ve had some not-so-great encounters with authors leaving comments about “how I got their book wrong” but I usually just ignore it, and thankfully they’ve never been too bad…
Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum recently posted…Book Review: The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein
Yeah, it seems so mean spirited?
I’ve mostly had the negative reactions, alas. Mostly for my non-fic reviews though.
Oh, spam – although it sounds like you get a better class of spam than me! I wouldn’t mind some save the whale spam – although a lot of mine is in Russian, so I suppose it -could- be about saving whales…
I’m not a big fan of the drive-by comments looking for click-backs (but it peeves me less than the authors who follow you for 3 days on Twitter then unfollow because you don’t follow back).
imyril recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday: books I didn’t review
Picture frames, though?! Most boring job I ever did, and now I get spammed with it? Arggh. XD
I feel a bit guilty reading this since I haven’t been able to comment back that much the past two weeks, but I’m trying to catch up 😉
Still, the whole of your list is perfect! Number5 is very weird ^^’ Number 9 why people whyy? Even in a review that is pretty positive but with one single meh thing, I won’t tag the author :O
One thing that happened to me was that someone agreed with one of my (rare) negative review, but when I went to check their review of this same book, they had actually a very positive one?? I don’t understand people ahaha
Haha, but it’s not about people who do drop by when they can! It’s about the people who never, but never, comment back, or the people who come by and tell me to enjoy my new books when I haven’t got anything new. You’re fine! I think the people who are really annoying won’t actually read this post anyway.
I’ve agreed with some negative reviews of books I liked because I could see their perspective, but it still can be weird!