It’s been a while since I’ve done a link round-up, so here we go. I’m on the down-side of a crazy-busy period and shouldn’t be spending my time on this, but I’m a glutton for punishment. On to the links…
- After a hiatus, there is a new Inside the Blogosphere question up at Grasping for the Wind about reviewers’ reviewing process. I took a slightly different path than the other responders.
- The Nebula Awards are announced. Scalzi has some interesting things to say about what may be a building controversy.
- Temple Library Reviews reviews the blogs and interviews the bloggers - look for Neth Space to participate in the future.
- The latest thing to get all the bloggers excited is about authors commenting on reviews. I’ve said a bit here and there, but the quote below sums it up good enough.
It's all about how it gets done - it can be done well and it can be a complete train-wreck. I think that it can be difficult to do it well, which is why authors should be cautious.
My own experiences are varied - I often get nice emails from authors thanking me for the review - typically there isn't any comment about the content. Sometimes an author will leave that comment at the review itself, which is also fine. It gets tricky when it goes further.
I'll point to two examples on my blog - in this review, Scott Bakker commented a bit and then discussion exploded. It was good, healthy discussion, but at such a high-level that I'm guessing that 99.9% of readers couldn't really follow it (myself included).
In this 'review', the author started constructive and degraded into petty insults. It was linked a few times as an example of why authors shouldn't comment on reviews. I definitely consider it an example of #reviewcommentfail.
6 comments:
Scalzi's commentary re: YA award winning books is perfectly noted. I'm still not sure why there is a prevailing preference for books suitable for that particular demographic to be forced into the back seat. "Gritty realism" equals better/best? It's becoming too formulaic.
-agreed
and your contribution is made of funny! Everyone seems to love it.
thanks John
Holy cow--I just saw the comments section about the Carole McDonnell review, and all I can say is, uh...wow. That's about as unprofessional a reaction as you can get, and I give you full credit for staying extraordinarily polite in the face of the sarcasm and snark. Obviously I hope you enjoy The Third Sign, but as an author I hereby promise not to get into an argument with you, on your own review site (!), about what you did and didn't like about the book when you review it. You're doing authors and readers a service by reviewing books thoughtfully, and that's the bottom line.
-Greg, in general, I'm happy to have authors comment here on reviews of their work or elsewhere. Thankfully, that one is an anomaly. I simply stopped responding when I no longer had 'nice' things to say - unfortunately, it went on a bit elsewhere before finally dying the death it deserved.
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