The Reviewer’s Plight

My faithful readers (all 3 of you!) will have noticed the lack of new posts recently. My apologies for that. It’s part laziness, part the pile of books I received for review a while ago.

Now, I’m an amateur reviewer…’amateur’ in the classic sense in that I don’t do it for money, but enjoy composing my little reviews for CBRA. Up until this last batch of books, all of the reviews I wrote sat in a hardbound annual in libraries across the country…likely very few people actually read them. Now, however, these reviews are going online, where they will (theoretically) be searchable by anyone looking for information on a given book.

And now I’m hesitant. When I blogged the list of books I received, I realized something I’d not thought about seriously before — the author may read my review of her/his book. Oh, I’m sure they did before, in the hardcover annual, but now, they truly will.

And they might respond.

In this day’n'age of tracking mentions of yourself/your book/your cause célébre online, I’m sure every single person attached to the books I received hit my blog.

Two responded.

This is exciting if you’re offering up praise. How every cool to be in touch with someone whose work you admire.

But what if the work is awful? What if it makes you cringe at the state of the book publishing industry in this country?

I will have to decide…to post my opinion, for good or for bad, as it is my opinion. Honest and true-as-I-see-it. It’s all I can do.

And I won’t ignore my blog anymore.

Thanks for listening.