Blog-ish Questions
Dear Story Siren,
I'm just in the process of starting a blog. One of my favorite type of posts in blogs I read are previews of upcoming books. These are books that are months away. How do you find out about these?
I've glanced at Publisher's Weekly's site and subscribed to Shelf Awareness (which seems more interesting than useful). What other resources are there?
Anon
Dear Story Siren,
You always have such good picks up for your Books to Pine For feature. I become acquainted with many interesting reads from you, but how do you find out about them?
Curious
Dear Story Siren,
How do you learn all the news you know about books that are coming out? Or what authors are doing? Are you subscribed to every author you know out there? Or just all the publishers? I have been wanting to do a book news thing on my blog but not sure how much time it takes to gather it all.
Anon
Dear Anon & Curious,
I stalk a lot of author blogs. Especially group author blogs. I also do lots of perusing on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Sometimes I'll even learn about upcoming releases from my fellow bloggers and twitter mentions! I don't really have one specific place that I use.
Always on the look-out,
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
Hi, I am an aspiring book blogger, and was wondering how you managed to arrange the placement of the book cover picture, block containing the description, and all the stuff with the title, author, publisher, etc in your reviews? Is there some HTML you have to use, or does Blogger have something?
M
Dear M,
Blogger allows you to choose the placement of your photos... (left, right, center)... The 'block' containing the description is another blogger option called a 'blockquote.' You can edit the html of your blockquote to make it look different... give it a different colored background, give it a outline, etc. Most of it isn't really all that complicated or fancy though.
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
I get SO many finished books for review from places like Random House, and a lot of them just don't interest me/work for the usual genres I review on my blog. I really appreciate recieving all these books, but do you think it's OK to donate these (really nice, hardback) copies to my local public library?
Best wishes,
Reader B
Dear Reader B,
If there is a particular publisher that is sending you unwanted books, it might be a good idea to contact them and let them know what genres you are interested in, so they know what books to send you. I'm sure they don't want to be sending you unwanted books. However, I definitely think it's a good idea to donate unwanted (really good condition) books to your library!
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
What's an affiliate?
I've been seeing this word around the blogging world lately and wanted to know what it meant exactly...
Thanks.
-A
Dear Story Siren,
I notice a lot of bloggers are doing affiliate things and I just wondered what is an affiliate and would it be a good idea to do one of those myself?
Thanks,
Liz
Hey Kristi,
Recently I was asked to become a blog affiliate. I accepted, because we have been helping each other out a bit. The only problem is we don't know what an affiliate officially means. I feel a little naive that I said yes and I didn't know what it was. If you could clarify I would be immensely grateful!
A Bit Confused
Dear A, Liz & A Bit Confused,
Honestly I'm not at all sure what it is myself. From what I understand I think you're supposed to post about things your affiliates are doing that your own readers might be interested in... like contests or theme weeks, interesting posts or what not.
Honestly I'm not a fan of the whole affiliate thing. I think the blogosphere as a whole should be an affiliate for each other. What's wrong with posting something you find interesting from a fellow blogger on your blog and directing your blog traffic there... why does it have to be limited to your affiliates? I know some people will say 'well it doesn't have to be limited to your affiliates' which makes me ask the questions... 'then why even have affiliates in the first place?' It's just another thing that segregates us and keeps an elitist mentality... nope sorry you can't be my affiliate because you aren't good enough.
As someone that subscribes to a lot of blogs it's sort of annoying to see the same things posted on every blog.
Of course those are my two cents and I could go on about how I feel about it... but I think you can get the gist of how I feel about the whole thing.
Not a Fan,
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
For your contests, you use spreadsheets.How exactly do those work, and how do you use them?
Thanks!
Anon
Dear Anon,
I use Google Docs for all of my contests and I LOVE them. I will never go back to comment form entries. Google Docs is a free service, all you need is a google account. If you have a blogspot blog, you already have a google account.
On the Google Docs homepage you'll just need to 'create a new' document. For my contest I use the 'form' option. Then just edit the form with what you want it to include. You will have the option to embed the form into your post, which is what I usually do, or you can use a link that will open a new page that will contain your form.
Basically when the form is filled out all the information is sent to a spreadsheet. The only person that is able to view the spreadsheet is you, unless you invite another person to view it. It's great for me because it assigns every entrant a number, then I just have to plug the numbers in a random number generator and I get my winner! Easy peasy!
All about the simple,
Story Siren
Hi!
First off I love your blog! You are always so helpful and the reviews are great!
My question is how do you feel about book review bloggers adding additional posts about their daily life? Do you think it is okay or would you advise it to be strictly book reviews?
Anon
Dear Anon,
Thank you!
Here's what I think... It's your blog, post what you want to.
I can't say that enough. I've had to remind myself of that a few times, but it's very true! Say it with me now!
It's my blog and I'll post what I want to!
On a more serious note, do I think it's okay. Sure I do. If your readers don't want to read a personal post then they can skip over that one. It's always nice to know the person behind the blog. I'm not a fan of blogs that don't reveal anything about themselves... how can I build a 'relationship' with you, enough to trust your opinions if I know nothing about you. Answer being, I don't.
Getting to know you,
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
What does an RSS feed do and how do you go about setting it up for a blog?
Thanks, Eve
Dear Eve,
RSS means 'Really Simple Syndication'... like that clears up anything... I know! But basically it gathers information and posts it all in one place... like a summary or even a complete post. That doesn't even really explain it either... maybe you should look it up on Wikipedia or something... lol. It's always a good idea to have an RSS feed for your blog because it allows readers to subscribe to your blog and view it on feed readers such as Google Reader. I'm not really all that familiar with the whole thing actually...
Feedburner is a really good program. It's what I use. I'm not really sure of any other programs like that. If anyone knows of any, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.
To set up an account with Feedburner you'll need a Google Account, which is free. If you already have a blogspot blog you have a Google account. You'll need to sign into Google... under "My Products" you'll want to look for "Feedburner" it should give you instructions on how to set up an rss feed for your blog and it also has an option for you to make a button for your readers to subscribe to your blog!
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
How do you handle receiving books for review? Do you give out your home address, or have a PO box? Has your stance on this changed as you started getting more books?
Sincerely,
Anon
Dear Anon,
I do provide my home address. My real name is associated with some of my online accounts, so if someone really wants to find out my home address it just takes a few clicks in the white pages. Which I guess is why I don't think it's all that big of a deal. I understand people's insistence on privacy, but if someone really wants to get your information there are ways for it to be done.
It hasn't changed at all since I've started blogging. I've given out my home address since I started and I probably will continue to do so in the future. Now... my cell phone number... that is a whole different story, lol.
Story Siren
Dear Story Siren,
Obviously, you've read many, many books. So I was just wondering, do you read more than one book at a time? If so, how many usually?
Anon
Dear Anon,
I am a one book at a time kind of person. I know there are people that read multiple books at the same time, but I just prefer to not.
Not saying that I've never done so, but it's not something that I like to do. I think the most I've ever read at the same time was three.
One book kind of gal,
Story Siren
Check out other general questions from real readers on other "Dear Story Siren" posts:
Dear Story Siren (1) (Contacting Author for interviews)
Dear Story Siren (2) (Asking for ARCs International/US)
Dear Story Siren (3) (Hours spend blogging, personal and Navigation bar questions)
Dear Story Siren (4) (Advance Reader Copies/Reviews questions)
Dear Story Siren (5) (Blogging 101 Volume 1)
Dear Story Siren (6) (Author Interviews Edition II)
Dear Story Siren (7) (Publisher Interaction/Asking for ARCs
Dear Story Siren (8) (The Personal Edition)
Dear Story Siren (9) (Followers Edition)
Dear Story Siren (10) (Contest/Vlogs/Blogger Tricks)
Dear Story Siren (11) (Review Edition II)
Dear Story Siren (12) (Blog-ish Questions)
Dear Story Siren (13) (Blog-ish Questions)
If you have a question... blog related, personal, book related... submit it below to be featured on a future post of "Dear Story Siren" If you've already submitted a question and it hasn't been answered, don't fret! I will try to answer every question, so I may not have gotten to it or it may have already been asked before. That being said you can always check a previous post to see if your question has been answered already. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE COMMENTS IN THE BOX BELOW. The form below is to submit a question for the "Dear Story Siren" posts, not to leave a comment. Feel free to leave a comment in the "comments section"
Thank you!