What Was Your Favorite Book Blogger Moment of 2013?
Oddly, my favorite book blogger moment of 2013 relates to a book blog tour. I generally dislike book blog tours, or more precisely I dislike participating in book blog tours. I simply cannot review books to a particular schedule. There are some elements that I try to keep to a posting schedule: I post my Musical Monday selection on Monday (usually). I post my participation in Parajunkee and Alison's Follow Friday on Friday (usually). I try to post at least one book review every week (usually). I have thus far been able to post responses to the questions of the Book Blogger New Year's Challenge of 2014 in a timely manner. So I can keep to something of a schedule.
But this hides the usual disorganization that dominates my reading and writing. While I try to post one or more reviews every week, I usually can't say until that week what those reviews will be. I simply don't have the kind of organizational skills that would allow me to say that the review for, for example, the
Fellowship of the Ring will be published on February 3
rd or some similar statement. The best I could usually do is predict that review would be published at some point in February, and even that is a prediction of dubious value. For the most part, I review books when I am able, fitting the writing in between the other competitors for my time - including my day job, which pays the bills. I have a tendency to make lists of projects to be done during the week that I hope to have done by a particular day, maybe by Friday. Then when Friday rolls around, I find that I've only completed maybe half of the list.
Given this backdrop, it should be no real surprise that I'm not a huge fan of participating in book blog tours. I simply am not capable of writing a review to be published on a set date. I've participated in only a few, but those few have been enough to convince me that I don't really want to participate in others. But sometimes, against my better judgment, I allow myself to get roped into one. And that is what happened last September, when I, for some reason, agreed to review
Nu Logic: Rise of the Neos by
Bill Gourgey for a book blog tour. Which I promptly forgot about, because that's more or less my modus operandi when it comes to scheduled events like that. For about a month I vaguely remembered that I was supposed to read and review the book by a particular date, but other obligations and commitments pushed it to the back of my mind until October 22
nd, when I went back and checked to see what date my I was supposed to post my review. And the date I had agreed to was October 23
rd.Which meant that I needed to read and review a 500+ page book by the following day. So I did.
Despite the fact that I hate book blog tours. Despite the fact that grinding through the book and then churning out a decent review in a single day was exhausting, this is my favorite book blogger moment of 2014. Because I now know that if I need to, I can do that. I'm not planning on doing it again any time soon - and I'm certainly not planning on participating in any tours for the foreseeable future - but I could.
Go to Day 7: What Are Your Top Ten Book Blogger Pet Peeves?
Go to Day 9: What Cons or Events Do You Hope to Attend in 2014?
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I'm a huge fan of book tours when it comes to hosting an interview or a guest post, but trying to schedule a read/review is difficult. At that point, I find reading becomes a chore or a task, and it can really sap the enjoyment.
ReplyDelete@Bob R. Milne: I don't have guest posts on this blog. I just prefer that all of the content on the blog be authored exclusively by me. I haven't done any interviews yet, but that doesn't mean I never will.
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