If you've visited The Story, you might be familiar with a feature I do occasionally called "Dear Story Siren." If you not familiar with the feature, basically readers submit questions... personal questions, questions about blogging, author interview, publisher interaction, reviews, etc. It's my way of sharing some of the things I've learned during my blogging adventure. That being said, I am in no way a blogging expert, but I'd like to think I've picked a few things up along the way.
A lot of the questions I get have to do with publisher interaction. This is something that I think is very important for a blogger that is actively receiving review copies from publishers. I know that at a blogger myself, I want to continue to improve those relationships and be as beneficial to the publishers and authors as I can. The majority of the time I don't know the answers to these questions. I have my assumptions, but who knows if those are correct.
In turn, I was inspired to do something a little different with "Dear Story Siren." I'll be doing a special edition of "Dear Story Siren" geared specifically toward blogger/publisher interactions. I've contacted several publishing houses with a set number of questions to be answered, and I'll be featuring a different publisher each post.
Past Dear Publisher Posts:
Penguin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
HarperCollins
Today's blogger/publisher interaction questions are from Bloomsbury USA. Imprints: Bloomsbury Children's & Walker Books for Young Readers.
What should I include in my review copy request?
Generally, the more information you can include the better it is for us. Stuff like:
- A link to your blog
- A few stats
- What kind of books you like (Any YA? Paranormal? Contemporary?) or maybe a few that you have read recently that you really enjoyed, anything to give me a better idea of what books would be a good fit for you
- YOUR ADDRESS!
Basically, you are asking us to send you something and if we haven’t worked with you before, the easier you make it for us to find out about you and send things to you, the more likely we are to do it! Our catalogs are also available as PDFs on our website www.bloomsburykids.com/catalog and I love it when people take a look ahead of time and let me know what they are interested in specifically.
When is the best time to post my review?
This is a little tricky. We like to have reviews go up a bit ahead of the on-sale date for a book to “build buzz,” but we also like for the book to actually be available for people who read your review to buy. If you post a review 4 or 5 months before a book comes out, people who read it will often have forgotten about the book by the time it actually goes on sale.
Do publishers want to be sent reviews of titles I've bought?
Absolutely! Any time you write something about one of our books we’d love to see it.
Do publishers want to be sent reviews of titles that have been on the shelves for a while?
Sure! (See above!)
Is it okay to have a contest for an arc that I’ve gotten from a publicists?
Yes! We love it when you help us spread the word about our books and I always enjoy seeing what kinds of contests you all come up with. That being said, we tend to not be so happy about people selling ARCs.
How many months do you like to see someone blogging before they can request an advance readers copy? What criteria does a publisher look for before they will send you an advance readers copy?
I don’t have any hard and fast rules about who I do and don’t send books to (other than that we don’t ship books internationally). For me, it is more about how much information you give me when you write to request books and the quality of the reviews that you post along with how often you post them. Sure, numbers are important, but they’re certainly not everything. I am much more likely to send books to someone with fewer followers who writes careful, thoughtful reviews than someone who has tons of followers but reviews each book in 4 or 5 sentences.
When you send a copy for review, do you like us to let you know it arrived?
Not necessarily. A few people do and I don’t mind it, but I tend to let people know when something is on the way to them, so I really only need to know if it doesn’t arrive after a reasonable amount of time has passed.
Do you want us to send you links of our reviews that are negative?
For sure! A review is a review and it can also help me to get a better idea of what kind of books you like when I am deciding what to send you in the future.
What if I can't get into a book that you sent me for review, do you want us to let you know that we won't be reviewing it?
Nope.
When is the best time to request an arc, 3-4 months before the publication date?
Because of the timing issues I mentioned before, requesting a title 6-8 weeks before publication date is probably ideal. However, I also keep lists of people who have requested things that we either don’t have ARCs of yet or aren’t ready to send out - though this does create more work for me and they don’t usually get sent out as promptly as requests that I get closer to the release date.
Do you like sites that promote sharing advance readers copies?
Yes! It seems like more and more of these have been popping up and I think that they are fantastic! Coordinating blog tours is fun, but can also be extremely time consuming, so it is always exciting for me when I can send a book off and know that it will eventually make its way to 10 or 15 people!
Is it better to contact an author for swag (bookmarks, postcards, etc.) or should we ask the publicist?
The publicist! We ask our authors to pass along all requests to us anyway, to make sure that we aren’t doubling efforts, so if you just e-mail the publicist directly, that saves a step.