June 17, 2013

Book Blogger Confessions (#8): BEA/ALA thoughts (I've never been)!

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme that posts the 1st Monday of every month, where book bloggers "confess" and vent about blogging/bookish topics. If you haven't guessed the idea is to answer a question & you can share, vent and offer solutions. Ranting if the question demands it works & you'd really enjoy it if you did participate as there's a ton of respect between each other, even more than normal. We understand they are your solutions & if they work? Great. If the question isn't a hunky dory one? We're asked to:
Keep it respectful - no bashing authors or other bloggers!


Hosted by For What It's Worth and Midnyte Reader
(Grab their button and include it in your post with a link to the feature co-hosts)
So, if you want to participate here's the meme question for June 17th (and following that, once again I've really ranted this week). You can participate any day in this following fortnight just answer to let us know this regarding BEA/ALA:

Have you ever been before? If you've been before, share your experiences; both pro & con. If you haven't gone before, do you participate in online events like Armchair BEA? Do you hope to go one day? Do you feel too intimidated to go? Are you jealous of the big book hauls and tweets during the events?

I haven’t been yet, but hopefully I’ll experience one in the UK someday, and I did participate in one Anti-BEA event- the #bookishparty! It wasn’t a readathon but I did need lots of coffee! If you were part of it you’ll know why! So, that answers part of the above doesn’t it? I’m not jealous of the tweets during the events & truth be told, I’m more intimidated by the heap of readathons that happen during it! It scares me & I’m still attending, and am busy, at school so I only have time for a few hour-long bookish party! Not readathons & unfortunately not the conferences either or many real life bookish events. It sucks and sometimes travel might be the bigger issue but I keep my head high & look at the...
BOOK HAULS!

They should depress me more than they do. So many bloggers get jealous but WHY, WHY, WHY? OK, I admit, it’s not that terrible to get jealous but I struggle when I get jealous so I try not to as much as possible. When I do get jealous it’s awful- I get annoyed. But often I’m jealous if I think they’re doing something wrong. Basically, if book bloggers are really greedy I’ll go... scream. Or something. Most of the time it’s not a blogger gloating. It’s their way of publicizing books, telling you what’s coming up & maybe if they’re ARC’s you’ll think of requesting them. You now have an opportunity- will you make the best of it or the worst?
Well, I want to know your opinions but for me if I get jealous to the point I’m annoyed I will stop looking & I think people should do that. Some times are better for looking at hauls & some hauls are easier to look at. One person might love a blogger’s hauls, another may not (but please if you’re this person don’t put the blogger off, there truly are lots who probably do like the haul).
If I’m honest, I don’t post my hauls a lot because I know they’re not impressive. Maybe that’s wrong & one day it’ll flip? I don’t expect it to though; I wouldn’t ask bloggers with impressive hauls to stop posting them. Hauls are great.

I might’ve said that but now I must confess- bloggers should get a nice haul from BEA. They’ve paid for travel to go & are going to do a favour (hopefully). But you see, that’s down to them reading them. It is stupid, I’m sorry but it is, to get boxes & boxes. Or multiple copies for giveaways. That is so rude! What if a blogger there couldn’t get a copy? They’ve made the effort & your readers that haven’t? We don’t deserve those books. We might have good intentions but they don’t seem quite as good as BEA-attenders who may now be missing out. I’ve seen that & I will interpret it as greediness, not goodwill. Host your own giveaway if you feel bad for us non-goers. Don’t take those books. It’ll probably cost a pretty penny in shipping/postage whereas we’d really appreciate an ebook giveaway (especially those who aren’t in the US) & I personally would more.

*Sigh*


Bet you're glad I only rant once a month! To be fair my last proper rant like this was more than you'd expect ago... I was actually looking at some of my old posts & things have changed, like since The Sidebar Rant (on the 18th of March). Of course, you know I now use Feedly (which I've only had minor issues with really recently but now I'm fixated with it). I've also installed in my sidebar the link to feedburner which works for ANY feeds (the second feedly button doesn't link specifically to feedly). Not only that but there's a contact feature & it does work as I received a message via it. I don't care if you don't have an official reason for using it if you ever feel like dropping me some lines which won't fit in a tweet then feel free to use that not GR message. I'm open to either, of course.
I've also found my bloglovin' page & although I don't have an account I was glad I'd found it & saw 24 people were following me! It means a lot to know that although these don't all equate to my GFC followers lots of you have still stuck around & email subscribers are some of my favourite!
Basically what I'm trying to say is, if you are following by GFC & you'd like to see my content please follow via other method! I'll happily follow back other book bloggers too and not just the "Blogger" kind either. If you have an RSS option you can expect me to follow back & hopefully exchange some comments with you.
I've met so many great bloggers via this meme so HOORAY!

Anyway, do you agree or are your thoughts a good contrast?

7 comments:

Julie@My5monkeys said...

I agree if they went to the conference they should have those hauls..but as I have been blogging ..I have becomes less green :)

yes they should do something like BEA in the UK

Karen said...

My first year at BEA I went book crazy grabbing everything. I usually read over 200 books per year and lived under the philosophy that there can never be too many books. That may be true but there can be too many books at once.
IT totally freaked me out when I got home and I couldn't figure out what to read first and went into a horrible reading slump.
I did host tours for the books so they would still be reviewed and I learned a very valuable lesson that year.

I agree with you about the greed I have seen at these events. Everyone grabbing 3-4 copies just to giveaway to grow their blog is wrong. The most popular books are gone within 5 minutes of a book drop so that's a blogger/librarian who paid to go to the event and didn't get a book.

I try to share my books when I'm done. ARC's are expensive to print up and the more reviews it can get the better,

Trish @ Between My Lines said...

I do look in envy with BEA book hauls, how can we not. We love books and to see so many freebies is like a dream come true! The tickets are expensive though so that means they are not really free and reading and reviewing and formatting takes time (as we all know) so maybe they are not really freebies. What I think is wrong is if folks grab up books for the sake of looking like they have great hauls and then never reading them. That is not right and as you pointed out snatching up too many books (for giveaways or whatever) is doing a disservice to all the other attendees. Great post Amy! I agree with a lot of it even if I am someone who posts weekly book hauls!

Anonymous said...

What about the London Book Fair? Is that similar to BEA? (I've only heard the name before, don't know anything about it.)

Stephanie @ Love. Life. Read said...

I am not jealous either--I will get to read the books at some point whether I get an ARC or I read them after they're published. I don't know why people would get annoyed--what's the point in that?

I love Feedly personally and have added you to my Feedly. :) Happy Reading!!

AwesomeAmy said...

@Julie: BEA in the UK would just be like... Woah. I reckon it wouldn't be as expensive for things like food & accommodation as well so I reckon I would be allowed. Even if I went to NYC I wouldn't spend all that if I could. Stay with family ;)

@Karen: I'm glad you have learnt :L I see that you do send books to US bloggers & the like. That's something I always see you guys doing & I'm yet to get involved with a UK one! We miss out on so much, Amazon deprives us... It goes on & on :P I feel sorry for those that went & missed out *hits greedy bloggers*

@Trish: It's OK that you do post hauls, especially as you realize some people will get jealous. I definitely think not everyone will. It depends on perspective. If it's got books I want in the haul I'm more likely to be but only as much as seeing they've reviewed a freebie :P I get so grateful for my feeebies which won't EVER potentially cost £500+ with costs to have an experience at grabbing them from other bloggers :L You probably read more than me (as you know). If somebody did that too I'd get annoyed. Thanks!

@cheapthrillsbookblog: I definitely don't think so. I've never been as it happens during school time (or has for last few years) but have heard it's not about the author/blogger experience or anything. It may have similarities but I want something set up where teen bloggers can go to & we meet authors! ;) I've never met an author at an event :(

@Steph: YES! *high fives* Join the non-jealous club. I'm not most of the time anyway... There are too many books & in every haul there's books I wouldn't want or know I can't read soon. If a haul consisted of only books I'm dying to read but haven't yet got then I'd get a teensy green but not annoyed. I also love seeing people have or are reading the same books as me. I prefer knowing beforehand so then I can think of having a buddy read (I've done hardly any) but atm I've seen so many people reading Noble Conflict & I am too, I get so happy. Thanks for adding me to your feedly!

Midnyte Reader said...

I love how you said will you make the best of it or the worst? Everyone has jealous moments. I don't really get jealous of people's hauls and opportunities...I get annoyed when people seem like they're bragging.

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