As a writer who has gone through the book publishing process once and is going through it a second time, I know just how important Book Bloggers are to the writer/publisher/reader world.

Writing a book is only the first step. Next you have to sell it to an agent or editor, then you have to promote it. In the “good old days” when publishing budgets included money for book tours, writers could look forward to help in getting their word out about their books. That’s different in today’s tight market. What I love is that just when you think there’s no way you’re going to be able to tell readers about your supercalifragilisticexpialidocious novel, here come some heros to save the day.

So thanks, Book Bloggers, for becoming the conduit between the writer/publisher and the reader. You are totally appreciated.

—C. Lee McKenzie
Author of The Princess of Las Pulgas and Sliding on the Edge

To be honest, when I decided to “see what this whole Twitter thing was about,” I had no idea what would happen. I thought that it would be a new way to look at publicity and help get the word out to people who may not know us here at Peachtree Publishers. Joining the world of social media has certainly done that, especially for those of us that aren’t a part of the Big Six Publishers. Now, we have a platform, a voice and an audience that was previously much more difficult to reach.

What I wasn’t expecting from this online publicity experiment was the relationships that would grow out of a leap into the unknown social media world. When my boss M.B. and I first started exploring Twitter and blogs, we didn’t really know where to start. One of the difficult things about jumping on the bandwagon relatively early is that there isn’t a set industry standard for doing things, which meant we had to wing it. Lucky for us, we had a lot of people offer to help.

In Fall 2009, we made our Twitter account for @PeachtreePub and started following anyone book related. We were observers at first and kept seeing different tweets popping up with links to blog tours. I must admit, that this was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing, but decided it was a fabulous idea and wanted to try it out myself. M.B. and I picked out a book we thought would do well on a blog tour, chose a week that we wanted to do it, and researched children’s book blogs that we wanted to review the book… it was right about then that I realized we had no clue what we were doing.

I decided to put Twitter to good use and threw out there, “Anyone know how to organize a blog tour?” A lot of people chimed in with advice, but Trish from TLC Book Tours offered to e-mail me with as much information as she had about how to organize and run a Book Blog Tour. I was more than a bit surprised by this. Here was someone who’s job it was to run and plan book tours, willingly giving me the secrets of the trade, so to speak. Our first blog tour for 14 Cows for America was a huge success, in large part to Trish.

The more I e-mailed and tweeted with Trish and other bloggers, I began to realize I was being welcomed into and becoming a part of a greater community at large. This is a group of people who, on the whole, just love books and want to see each other succeed (publishers included) and see the books they love get shared and read. As a publicist, my role is slightly different within this community. I get books to people I think would enjoy them, read other blogs, connect new blogs to each other through blog tours, and even started writing my own blog for Peachtree Publishers.

This past spring, at BEA, I began to fully realize the reach of this community. People came to our booth to find me, introduce themselves and shared ARCs with me they grabbed that they thought I would like. Every day I get tweets asking how my wedding planning is going, or how my niece is, if I got the book they sent to my office for me, or letting me know that they got the books I sent them. It is not just about them getting “free” books, or me getting a review. It makes me realize that I am a part of something much bigger than myself, based on a love of books, which is an amazing feeling. Thank you to everyone in the Book Blogging Community that make me love my job. You’re all so wonderful to work with, but you’ve become such fun and interesting friends as well.

I won’t deny that I had dreams of writing in my past, and I still have the piles of journals in a storage bench to prove it. Early every morning, I’d walk to the Heinemann’s….Too (as opposed to the other Heinemann’s coffee shops that dotted Milwaukee) and write four pages beforeheading to my job as the backlist buyer at Milwaukee’s Harry W Schwartz Bookshops. W didn’t stand for anything. Harry just liked the idea of middle initial.

At the time, I was reading a lot of fiction, way more short stories than the average consumer, and a peppering of personal essays. I had become quite enamored of Philip Lopate’s Against Joie de Vivre, published by Ann Patty at her legendary Poseidon imprint (for a year or so, it seemed like I was reading every Poseidon book published, years before these similar Amy Einhorn and Reagan Arthur challenges). I wound up several other Lopates (unusual for a bookseller, who tends to be overwhelmed by the new book pile) including Being with Children and Bachelorhood.

Let’s just say the writing thing didn’t pan out the way I expected. I simply didn’t have the focused imagination it takes to be a fiction writer. And who would want to read my ramblings on what happened in the store yesterday or an angry rant on white matte covers, and how quickly they get dirty? And I didn’t want to give up bookselling to go to graduate school.

Good thing that technology caught up to my limitations. For in a way, my daily blog is not that different from my old journal entries, only I leave out various crushes and try to temper my angry rants.

It’s been great for helping me build my relationship with customers as I transitioned from Schwartz to my own Boswell Book Company on Downer Avenue in Milwaukee. And while other bookseller blogs tend to be industry focused, I try to remember that my core reader is my customer, and steer clear of publishing battles, unless of course it’s interesting to our Boswell shoppers. I also try to avoid making it a dry events page-we’ve got a website and an email newsletter for that, so though I do discuss events, I try to give it a twist, making it an interesting read for non-attendees.

As these things go, I have figured out that only half of the folks who read the blog are Wisconsinites. Publishers, sales reps, booksellers and family/friends account for why my readers come from New York, Illinois, California, and Minnesota. But why I got 46 hits from Canada and 34 from the United Kingdom, I have no clue. (I can account for half the hits in Australia from our friend Denise, who visited with the store with my sister over the summer.)

Very fun. But really, what makes me happiest is when a customer comes in who I don’t know and starts talking about the blog. Of course sometimes they mean the email newsletter, but that’s okay too.

I follow a number of independent book bloggers, many (but not all) of them are booksellers, but the blog is not part of their job. I also follow some official bookstore blogs, and those written by bookseller owners. Sadly, of late, several have fallen off posting. I think some of moved to Facebook, Twitter, or maybe even Foursquare, in the great desire to be king of their local bagel shop. Though our store does try to keep up with these social networks, I have not taken to them with as much enthusiasm because they don’t really seem…like writing.

So is it a job? Sort of. Am I the next Philip Lopate? No. Is that okay? As long as people keep coming in Boswell, it will do.

(Check out Daniel’s blog Boswell and Books…it’s a must read for me, even though I’m one of the long distance readers!)

WOW!  You all really showed up yesterday and I could actually feel the love!  Thank you so much for your enthusiasm!

Today is one of our most popular days during BBAW…the Interview Swap!  But first some housekeeping.

I know a lot of you are just stumbling upon BBAW for the first time and we’re so happy to have you here with us.  Each day has a themed topic and the Mister Linky is for sharing a link to a post written specifically for that day.  This is called a permalink.  Please only enter permalinks to posts written on the BBAW topic into the Mister Linky.  There are so many participants and this makes it much much easier for everyone participating to enjoy their time.  Thank you!

Okay now that that is out of the out of the way…I can’t wait to get to know you all better via your interviews!  Please label your link like this:  (Your Blog Name) Interviews (Partner’s Blog Name)  i.e. Book Gator interviews Reading Addict.

Thanks and have fun!

When I attended the first annual Bloggers Convention in NYC, I had to keep repeating that to myself because it was so hard to remember, since the bloggers were all being so darned friendly! Everyone was helpful and welcoming to this blogging neophyte and debut author (I learned SO much at that convention through the workshops and casual conversations), it made it hard to resist the natural connections that were happening.

I know in every industry there are “rules” to follow. I don’t know how many times I heard the speakers say that there is a line that should not be crossed, a distance that should exist, between bloggers and authors because of the impartiality and professionalism that must be maintained. I understand that, but let me say, it is hard to stay impartial when I meet so many wonderful people! Bloggers provide an amazing service and networking centerpiece (out of the goodness of their hearts and for our common love of books) for so many readers, the true consumers in the book world, and were so gentle with this bull in a china shop that I THANK YOU for teaching me all about the blogosphere and the power within it! You have helped make my book launch very special, and your questions are so creative and fun to answer.

Blog on!

Sandra Brannan
In The Belly Of Jonah

We all know how quickly word can spread through the book blogging community. It’s like a lightning round of telephone! One person hits “post” on a particularly heartfelt review and sits back in that post-review quiet and holds her breath. Wondering. Will anyone respond? Will they get the book the way she did. Then someone else reads the review and thinks, “Wow, I really want to track that book down now.” Maybe they go ahead and link to it from Twitter or make a comment about it on someone else’s site. Another person gets the bug and goes out and checks it out or buys it the next day. Soon the reviews and comments are flying and something remarkable has happened. I love watching this particular phenomenon play out most of all when the book in question happens to be one that maybe not so many people know about—an under-the-radar book, an old favorite, some out-of-print darling that sits in a place of honor on your shelf but that you have no one else to talk to about because you literally don’t know a solitary soul who’s actually read it. Maybe you’ve scoured the internets for inexpensive used copies to give as gifts to any receptive friends and family members. You’ve read it over and over and the richness and awesomeosity of it fills you up to bursting every time. And all you want to do is share it or you might explode in a shower of well-chosen words and dog-eared pages.

Just over a year ago I began to realize a growing chunk of the best recommendations I was getting from other bloggers were for books that weren’t the latest rage. Rather, they were for the ones I’d never heard of before. And it occurred to me that there was a slew of old beloved titles I would love to talk about with them. And so Retro Friday was born. I hoped to be able to spend a little precious blog-time discussing a few reads that weren’t Brand New. I also looked forward to these reviews coming from a slightly wider variety of genres than is my norm, as they would be drawn from many years of past reading rather than just what I’m crushing on in the here and now. And, more importantly, perhaps these retro reviews would be more than just reviews. Perhaps they would provide the opportunity to talk on a regular basis about reading influences, reader’s nostalgia, and other topics near and dear to my heart. The whole thing felt downright refreshing. Now, it is in many ways a very self-serving endeavor. I wanted to get other readers to read the books I’ve loved for so long so I could talk about them with others. At the same time, I felt a strong pull to feature books that deserve so much more credit than they’ve gotten. Because with all the buzz about ARCs and early reviews, giveaways and followers, it’s important to remember that—for me at least—book blogging isn’t about who’s read what, when, and how fast. It’s about the entire vast and complicated range of our collective love for stories—no matter what the cover looks like, what genre it’s been labeled, how old the protagonist is, or whether it’s a debut novel or the eighth in a series. I review “old books” because I am fascinated by how we get to be the kind of readers we are and why the books of our lives are the ones they are. In the beautiful words of W.B. Yeats, “I bring you with reverent hands / the books of my numberless dreams.”

Angie blogs at Angieville about her love of stories old and new. 

It’s that time of year again!  The time when we rake all the year’s LOLs and feuds and WTFs into a pile and roll around in them.  Who’s with me?

This year saw a lot of bloggers going to the woods because they wanted to read deliberately (to love deep, to suck out the marrow, etc), and more than one blogger re-discovered the delight of re-reading, despite Mt TBR giving them the side-eye.

Much of this re-reading business came from the sudden wave of Blogger Ennui that swept the intersphere, and everyone knows the only cure is a dose of Childhood Favorites.  You may take two Secret Gardens and call me in the morning.

Speaking of childhood favorites, the flood of bastardized and zombified Victoriana seems to have slowed to a trickle, but this year’s making of Where the Wild Things Are into a movie, and then making the subsequent movie back into a yet a more different book proves once and for all that there is nothing new under the sun.  Angels are the new vampires and werewolves are the new zombies and there’s no option but to start buying stock in unicorns.

Book bloggers got their con on, at the First Annual Book Bloggers Convention following the Book Expo of America.  Presumably, having our own Con would make book blogging Official and Therefore Non-Ridiculous, but SF has disproved that theory pretty roundly.  Aw, SF, you know I love you and your nerdy, ridiculous face.

The FTC took us seriously for a second and gave us all a fright and we became Very, Very Scrupulous (and sort of pissy) about our book sources.  And then they took it all back and said we just had to try really hard to be honest, ok, little tigers?  *head pat*

In further head-shakey news, much beloved (by me) authors Diana Gabaldon and GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMartin spat in the faces of those fans who advertised their works FOR FREE via fanfiction, thereby revealing a woeful ignorance of how the intrawebs (and fanfiction [and the world]) works.

Authors weren’t the only ones causing kerfuffles.  Jackie’s post re: UK vs US bloggers resulted in OPINIONS – some were cogent and reasonable and some were just plain shouty and the whole thing became an untidy mess.  The friendly neighborhood Book Smugglers gave THEIR opinion on Sisters Red (it was predominately frowny-faced), which also resulted in many, many all-caps in the comments. 

And then Penguin turned 75 and we baked a cake, but not with candles because books are flammable.  As are penguins.

And then because some things will never change, RaceFail continued WITH A VENGEANCE.  Between the covers drummed up for Catherine Valente’s Habitation of the Blessed, Cindy Pon’s Silver Phoenix, and the original cover for Jaclyn Dolamore’s Magic Under Glass, I’m surprised POC show up on any book covers at all.  Oh no, look!  They missed one.  Let me get that for you, guys.

We clearly need to shame them harder.  Speaking of shaming, I was fully behind the shame-campaign to stop people from selling ARCs online.  ARCs are for hoarding and gloating over and reading ostentatiously on the bus before the release date.  If they are awful, you may use them to line the bird cage.

ARCs were in high demand for the final books in the Chaos Walking and Hunger Games trilogies, both of which came to an end this year.  One series that shall not be named (but that rhymes with Peel of Slime by Bobert Dordan) continues into apparent perpetuity, despite its author being very, very dead.  Someone get that cash cow another bale of hay.

A fair portion of the book-talking public came down with Franzenfreude (rumor holds that the plague began in the Weiner-Picoult Sector) and the legitimate question of whether or not the NYT is sexist quickly devolved into a spat over whether any of the involved authors are any good.  Because more gets done when you turn your reasonable complaint into a personal attack.

And then Nicholas Sparks compared himself to Cormac McCarthy but no one paid any attention because that is silly.

And because we needed more things to do on the intratubes, followthereader became a thing and #bblog became a thing and That’s How I Blog became a thing and not-being-able-to-go-to-BEA-but-attending-from-your-armchair became a thing and doing the Blogger Hop (which is like the Monster Mash, but with significantly fewer monsters) became a thing and flinging one’s panties at beloved authors became a (slightly tawdry) thing and bloggiesta continued to be a thing and the Nerds Hearted YA again and there are now SO MANY readathons that you could be reading at any time and be all, It’s for this online thing that I’m doing.  You can google it.

The internet is vast and sprawly and mostly NSFW, so thank God for our book-laden sandbox over here.  It’s bigger now, with more playmates and shinier toys, but I still feel like I could high-five everyone in the room.

Up top, y’all.  You are still the best ones.

(Thanks to Raych for another excellent year in review!)

Can you believe it?  BBAW is upon us at last!  We have such a fun week ahead of us—and I hope each of you will be around for all of the action!  Enough of me jabbering away though, let’s kick things off!

Each day we will have a topic you are invited to write about on your blog in an effort for us all to get to know one another a little bit better.  Please remember to use the PERMALINK to your post.  We’ll try to delete all links that aren’t a permalink in order to keep this fun for everyone.  Not sure what a permalink is?  Check out the Mister Linky Tutorial.

Let’s talk about that first treasure today. 
For those of you who participated in BBAW last year, what’s a great new book blog you’ve discovered since last year’s BBAW? 
For those you new to BBAW, what was the first book blog you discovered? 

Tell us all about this blog and why you love it…why do you keep going back for more? 

Happy BBAW everyone!

It’s almost here!  Can you feel the excitement in the air?  Book Blogger Appreciation Week is almost upon us!

The BBAW Content Development Team is proud to announce our theme for 2010:  A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs.  You’ll probably be stuffing your google reader with the new blogs you discover next week and piling onto your bookshelves with all the great books we’ll be talking about!

Every day there is a blogging topic you can write about on your blog.  We’ll host a Mister Linky here so that you can share your link and go out into the big old bookblogosphere and discover everyone else’s blog!

The blogging topics are listed below for each date.  For a reminder on how to use Mister Linky, please see the Mister Linky tutorial.

Monday—First Treasure
We invite you to share with us about a great new book blog you’ve discovered since BBAW last year!  If you are new to BBAW or book blogging, share with us the very first book blog you discovered.  Tell us why this blog rocks your socks off and why you keep going back for more.

Tuesday—New Treasure—Interview Swap
Post the interview you did with your BBAW Interview Partner.  If you didn’t sign up in time, please email bookbloggerappreciationweekATgmailDOTcom because there is a waiting list.

Wednesday—Unexpected Treasure
We invite you to share with us a book or genre you tried due to the influence of another blogger.  What made you cave in to try something new and what was the experience like?

Thursday—Forgotten Treasure
Sure we’ve all read about Freedom and Mockingjay but we likely have a book we wish would get more attention by book bloggers, whether it’s a forgotten classic or under marketed contemporary fiction.  This is your chance to tell the community why they should consider reading this book!

Friday—Future Treasures
We’ve been visiting each other and getting to know each other better…now is your chance to share what you enjoyed about BBAW and also what your blogging goals are for the next year!

A huge thank you to Bella of A Girl Reads a Book for designing this year’s themed button!

We will email you with your interview partner by September 3rd.  If you do not receive your information by then, please contact bookbloggerappreciationweek@gmail.com immediately.