To give or not to give away. . .

My little announcement that I was considering reducing the number of book giveaways I do via the Hotlist doesn't seem to sit well with some of you. So let me elaborate a little before I call it a night. . .

If you've been reading this blog for a while, I'm sure you're aware that I've been working hard to give credibility and respectability to online reviewers. From the very beginning -- well, as soon as I realized I had a following -- I've been striving to offer quality content. Little by little, my work was ultimately recognized and appreciated by the more and more people in the publishing industry. Knowing that I was far from being the only one with quality content, on numerous occasions I invited fellow bloggers such as Jake, Larry, Rob, William, Ken, and others to work on some project or another with me, hoping that these collaborative efforts would help give them exposure. I put in a good word for many people whose work I enjoy and respect when publicists and editors asked me if I knew of any good blogs out there.

The long and the short of it is that I've spent the last two years or so attempting to establish that some online reviewers can write honest, fair and insightful book reviews. I'd like to believe that I fall into this category.:-)

When guys like Jay, Rob, Gabe, William and I began blogging, we were just a couple of punks (heck, maybe we still are. I know I am!) with absolutely no pretentions of being "true" reviewers. The only thing we all had in common was the fact that we were all huge SFF fans. As such, we probably created our own little sandbox on the internet in order to have an outlet to share our love of the genre with kindred spirits. There was no notion of ever receiving ARCs, doing interviews, or getting free stuff. After all, we were just a couple of punks, right!?!

It was a day and age in which not every other person had a blog, a LJ, Facebook, etc. Hence, it was much easier to follow what our fellow bloggers were doing. Which probably explains why we became quite popular and suddenly found ourselves with people who read our stuff because they had grown to trust our judgement and respected what we did. I can't even begin to explain how I felt when I first realized that over 100 people a day were checking out Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. When you consider that I rack up nearly ten times those numbers nowadays, you can imagine how I feel about the whole thing. . .

Since there were just a few of us who were doing it "seriously" back then, it was easier to be original. We all had our own voice, our own style, and that's what was so cool about it. Although most people believed that it couldn't be done, I always pushed the envelope, trying to get the publishers to do things they normally didn't do. Don't forget that blogs were virtual turds at the time, and most publicists wanted to have nothing to do with you. I have to thank Dave for giving me my first gig with Gryphonwood Magazine, which opened a few doors for me. Though the Hotlist was generating numbers that surpassed those of the magazine, "working" for print media made some people in the industry deign to look down on what I was doing.

Soon afterward, I had publicists, authors, and editors knocking on my door, eager to work with me. In retrospect, I must admit that it was a sweet victory/vengeance!;-) If memory serves me right, Jay Tomio and I were the first two bloggers who began offering book giveaways via our sites. A rarity at the time, these competitions and contests became an immediate success. Still, they were few and far between, and hence more of a bonus than anything else. The emphasis remained on the content.

What differentiated us from the print reviewers and the newer generation of bloggers is the fact that we were doing it for the love of the genre, nothing else. As I said, there was no promise of rewards such as review copies and other such concepts. We were just a bunch of guys who read books and then reviewed them. At times brutally honest (Gabe Chouinard and William Lexner, anyone!), we didn't really worry about ruffling any feathers. The online community is a small world, regardless of the fact that it spans the entire globe, and those were the people we were writing for. Gradually, the blogosphere grew and so did we. New bloggers saw the light, and each added his or her own flavor to something that has never ceased to gain momentum.

I believe that Jay was the first one of the original "punks" to gain notoriety. I edged my way into the limelight at the end of 2005, but it's in 2006 and the Hotlist took off and never came back down. As I mentioned, I did my very best to continue to offer quality content, meaning that I endeavor to write honest and fair book reviews. The content makes a blog, nothing else. Perhaps my efforts paid off at some point, but suffice to say that publishers finally realized that SFF blogs and websites could be wonderful tools to promote authors and their work.

Not so long ago, it used to be a major pain in the ass just to get a publicist to accept to supply a single copy of a novel for an online giveaway. Today, I could probably do a different competition every week, perhaps more. Publishers will shower you with books to giveaway, no matter who you are. It seems that all you need is a fantasy/scifi blog and you're in the clear. The danger here is that SFF blogs/sites could rapidly become little more than windows in which publishers pimp their stuff.

Of course, I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where running one of those contests doesn't increase my traffic. Unless I'm giving away a set of GRRM books, the newest Malazan volume, or a Subpress limited edition of Scott Lynch's debut, doing those giveaways does nothing for me. I see them as a way to say thank you to my readers for sticking with me. They, in turn, appear to enjoy the opportunities to win free books! But such is not the case with everyone. . . And when you're being offered novels to give away, many are not in a position to refuse. I know, for I would have been hard-pressed to say back in the days when the Hotlist was new.

The problem is that if blogs become little more than venues where publishers peddle their stuff, what little respect online reviewers have gained in recent months will evaporate before we have time to blink. Ken wrote an interesting post pertaining to Matt Denault's report on Readercon 18. Needless to say, this "Reviewing in the Blogosphere" panel shows you how far we are from credibility and respectablity.

It is my opinion -- and as such its worth is relative -- that there are too many giveaways nowadays. So much so that they are overlapping one another to such a degree that they no longer truly grant authors and their work as much exposure as they used to. The more there are, the less impact they generate. Not so long ago, such contests were a great tool to promote a book. But when you have ten simultaneous giveaways being pimped all over the place, they all sort of blur into one another. Unless they want to see their efficiency disappear altogether, publishers and bloggers will have to establish some sort of balance. For without that happy medium, giveaways will cease to be an efficacious means to spread the word about writers and books.

As Guy Gavriel Kay reminded me last fall, online reviewers striving for respect walk a very fine line. If we "sell out" and become little more than venues advertizing upcoming releases for various imprints that we give away for free, we instantly undermine our own credibility and that of the blog-reviewing world. Indeed, it gives ammunition to those who might suggest that blog reviewers are mainly about themselves and their own exposure. It feeds into the contempt implied by those who claim that we accept "bribes."

As I said earlier, I'm in a position where it's easy for me to make this judgement call. After all, most giveaways don't put more asses in the seats. Which is why I'm thinking about reducing the number of contests I do each month. Six in the last two weeks or so is simply too much. A publicist told me that I couldn't be serious, since the Hotlist is like the Super Bowl in terms of exposure their giveaway gets from a post from me. Be that as it may, content remains my number 1 priority.

Another problem seems to be that a growing number of people on various message boards consider a lot of people pimping those giveaways to be spammers. And in a way, we are. When there was two or three competitions per month, no one said anything. But now that there are countless threads pertaining to one giveaway or another, it sure changes the scenery on many boards. Which makes me realize just why the people at www.sffworld.com decided that members could no longer simply post links to their reviews, etc.

The timing is perfect, however. I'll be meeting quite a few people in the publishing industry in NYC this coming week, so I'll certainly bring this up in the conversations, if only to see what they think.

Okay, I have no idea if this makes sense. But I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning, so I'm going to sign off now!:-)