Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Editorial: More Complaining Oh Please No More!


Why do authors want to send you books when they have read your guidelines and their material isn't listed?  And what happens when we email you what do we expect?

I'm going to try to sum this up best I can.  When someone sends me a book to review or proposes a book for review if it doesn't fit in my category and something I probably won't read I usually don't respond to the email as I get a lot of them.  Under the  contact area it tells you what to send me for me to consider a review it also states what books I will or won't review.  Why authors ignore that and try to appeal to me isn't always going to work.  I could spend days sending rejection letters but I don't want to get into that nasty fight.  There are other book bloggers who will fit into your genre just cause I don't doesn't mean others won't.  I prefer mild mysteries or books similar to Alex Cross or Spencer for Hire.  I have enough to read and deal with that dealing with books out of my genre just don't fly even when I ask have you read my contact us page.  They always claim they do but there are times I really wonder if they have?  

Yes there are times a book will fit into my read category when normally I would pass.  Those books usually appeal to me in some way.  With the amount of time I spend blogging I really have to weigh the options with these books.  I may read one here or there but not all the time.  

My advice for authors please, please, please read the contact us page I can't stress that enough.  If you have questions about it inquire I would be more than happy to consider the book, I can't guarantee that your book will fall into the category but you never know.  

If your going to pitch your book to me please include:

The Title
Description
Picture (img) 
Date for Review (I try to work hard at getting books reviewed in a timely manner.)
and any other information you think we need to know.

I can't guarantee I will review it but without that information I won't review it.  Also authors please don't pitch a book to me for me to purchase.  Most book bloggers get the book in exchange for a review and not just hey check out my book here's a link which then drags to me to an Amazon page where your book costs.

Feel free to share your comments below I love to hear what others think about this ongoing issue.

2 shout outs:

Ann Summerville said...

I feel for you. I actually don't accept books for review but blog about books I have chosen to read (mostly from the library or passed on to me by friends) and I too receive numerous e-mails from authors that are a sales pitch to purchase their books.
Ann

Paula said...

it can be so frustrating to have to weed through whether or not the book is in guidelines