Archive for the 'Blogs and blogging' category

Reviewing for Amazon and Goodreads

Sep 14 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging

Before I joined Goodreads, I had no idea how popular a site it was. I decided to do a little comparison of other places people rate books, and it looks like nothing else comes close:

What Happens in London, by Julia Quinn

Borders.com, 2 reviews
LibraryThing, 26 reviews
Barnes & Noble, 86 ratings, 35 reviews,
Amazon.com, 108 reviews
Goodreads, 1,324 ratings, 255 reviews

Lover Mine, J. R Ward (Black Dagger Brotherhood Nhumber Eighht)

Borders.com, 23 reviews
LibraryThing, 22 reviews (372 members) 23 reviews
Barnes & Noble, 739 ratings, 215 reviews
Amazon.com, 343 reviews
Goodreads, 4,495 ratings, 877 reviews

Crazy For Love, Victoria Dahl

Borders.com, 0 reviews (?)
LibraryThing, 4 reviews (34 members)
Barnes&Noble, 11 ratings, 6 reviews
Amazon, 25 reviews
Goodreads, 140 ratings, 54 reviews

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 72,133 ratings, 18,012 reviews

Borders.com, 3 reviews (?)
LibraryThing, 752 reviews (12, 597 members)
Barnes&Noble, 2,951 ratings
Amazon.com, 1,816 reviews
Goodreads, 72,133 ratings, 18,012 reviews

Another surprise was seeing people who have (or had) book blogs writing reviews for Amazon and Goodreads. It’s possible to write one review and have it appear on all three sites.

Thinking about all of this, I have some questions:

Why do you (or don’t you) write reviews for Amazon and/or Goodreads?

If you blog, do you find it is good for your blog to post reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads?

After looking at these numbers, I am thinking it might be a bigger help to authors (and fellow readers) to post reviews (well, positive ones anyway) on Goodreads or Amazon.com than on our blogs, especially us smaller bloggers who don’t generate massive traffic anyway.  And before anyone gets huffy, I am not saying readers have to help authors in any way, but if we wanted to (hey, all that angst about the midlist has me worried), out of the fangirlygoodness of our hearts, it seems like that would be one way to do it. Confirming this suspicion, an author who had a release this week asked Twitter followers to go to Amazon and post reviews.

What say you?

30 responses so far

We’re All Mean Girls Now

Sep 09 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging

Please forgive me for beginning this otherwise sane post with an OT minirant:

One of the blog to which I subscribe has signed up for the “Mean Girl Cleanse”. To see what this is all about, click here and watch the video, but only if you don’t mind being irritated out of your freaking mind. The basic idea of the Mean Girl Cleanse is not, alas, furtively pouring laxative in the nonfat latte of your favorite nemesis, but rather, getting rid of your inner mean girl, that little voice that tells you bad things about yourself which, as we all know, are just not true.

Yes, sisters. It is you who are oppressing yourselves. Forget what we know about interlocking historic systems of oppression. Forget, also, what we know about all of the psychological biases which make it far more likely that your self-image is more positive than it has any right to be. Forget, finally, that the long held conventional wisdom on the importance of self-esteem and its contribution to happiness or productivity has been largely debunked. Forget worrying about your neighbors, your community, or your planet. Forget getting out of yourself and actually lifting a finger to help someone in need. All of these are just fodder for the real good, your own positive self-image. With a few cute cartoon icons and a bevy of smiling, Botoxed, veneered and curiously uncredentialed “experts”, you, too, can “feel SO much better… about YOU!”.

Oops!  You thought I was going to talk about Romanceland “mean girls”? Actually, I am. When I clicked on the above-described post, I thought the topic was the romance community. “Gosh”, I thought, “I haven’t seen the term ‘mean girls’ in ages!”*

[*I wrote that line a week ago, i.e. before today. When I did see it. *sigh*. ]

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion while there once may have been a division between review blogs that posted snarky reviews (I am thinking of Mrs. Giggles and Smart Bitches) and those that didn’t, I no longer see that division (if it ever existed). And here’s some evidence:

At All About Romance, here’s some snark in Rike’s F review of My Unfair Lady

At around page 250, obviously because the publisher demanded another 100 pages of text, Summer develops Issues and both she and Byron prove they took Psychology 101 at college by analyzing themselves, each other and their relationship in a way that would make Sigmund Freud proud.

Or this one of Beauty’s Cruse at AAR by reviewer Jean:

But the book didn’t actually fail until the halfway point, which is when the accumulated writing travesties began to take their toll. The head-hopping. The clumsy syntax. The misnomers. And dear God, the vocabulary. It should be mandated in Medieval 101 that you can’t get instant Medieval just by inserting “nay” and “for certes” ad nauseum amongst the 21st century nouns and verbs – it doesn’t work that way. It especially doesn’t work that way when, at one point, your heroine snorts and says, “Woot, woot.”

Or this one, of Moonlight Protector:

To be blunt, Moonlight Protector reads like the creative writing effort of an earnest thirteen year old.

From The Romance Review, a review of The Taming of Lord Astor

When Tilly and Lord Astor are barely acquainted, she asks, “Have you ever hit a woman?” His response so pleases her, she continues on the walk whistling and almost skipping. Lord Astor thinks she’s intriguing. The poor guy must be suffering from delusion.

If I hadn’t been reading The Taming of Lord Astor in order to review it, I would have abandoned it by page 25. It could be an object lesson in when good romance traditions go bad.

At TGTBTU the end of this D- Anita Blake review there’s this killer comment by Liviana:

But I kind of want to thank LKH for having Anita rape a sixteen year old. I can finally give this series up.

And Liviana is mad again (and who can blame her?) about how rape is depicted in this DNF review of a book called Soul Catcher:

Yeah Livia. It was your own damn fault you got raped. … Because, you know, not being able to defend yourself against rape means you wanted to get raped. It means you deserved it.

Book. Wall. (Followed soon after by the trash can, is my recommendation.)

Also at TGTBTU, here’s a very funny snarky review from author Lynne Connelly of The Innocent’s Dark Seduction:

We have a magic vajayjay in this book and I haven’t come across one of those in a while. One experience with Lia and all Roarke’s other women melt away as if they never existed. He can’t do without it. He craves it. He just wishes the woman didn’t go with it. And however badly he treats her, she can’t do without his purple-headed mushroom of passion, or his kisses, which are dynamite. She falls madly for him and the worse he behaves, the more besotted she gets. We don’t have enough of those women in romance. Once there were oodles of them, but not now. If you miss them, this is the book for you.

Snark at Dear Author in a Shuzluva review of Shayla Black’s Delicious:

It took me quite a while to get through this book, not because there were big words or complicated plot twists, but because I had to keep collecting my jaw from the ground and re-reading to make sure I’d read what I thought I had. I laughed…I cried…I nearly barfed. I can’t say it was better than CATS, but that’s probably because none of the characters were weres.

Dear Author’s Jane on The Gingerbread Tryst:

What is there to say other than there are things seen that cannot be unseen and this story is one of those things that is burned into my brain, destroying my fond memories of gingerbread cookies, red hots and cinnamon sticks. It’s an F for romance and sexiness but probably an A in destroying my childhood innocence. Bravo.

From the Book Binge — here’s a guest review of Carnal Ecstasy

I very much wanted to like this novella, and there were some good parts, but it left me feeling kind of dirty. Like a pool cue touched by who knows how many people and not washed before it’s inserted into a body cavity dirty. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems unsanitary.

And here’s a December 2007 review by Holly of a terrifying book called Office Slave:

In less than 12 months, she paid back her debt in full [via sex acts], which is quite an accomplishment, considering she got $100 for each blowjob and $250 for every screw. Do the math and on that and tell me you aren’t scared.

Smart Bitches doesn’t do many reviews these days, but Sarah does have a mildly snarky comment in her recent D+ review of Jane Porter’s She’s gone Country.

It was like going on a trip and being told, “This flight is headed to Houston. This flight is going to Houston. You’re aboard a flight that is going to Houston!” and then at the last minute, 5 minutes before landing, you hear, “Wait, never mind. We’re going to Minnesota!”

Mrs. Giggles, on the other hand, is definitely still at it. When she doesn’t like a book, it comes out funny. Here’s a review of Suzanne Brockmann’s Infamous:

Of course, the author also takes advantage of the opportunity to tell me that gay men need TLC too, war is bad (rather ironic considering that the selling point of her books are men who specialize in boom-boom-bang), alcoholism is a genetic disease, mental illness is best combated with a healthy dose of love and understanding, and respect the kitchen sink in the universe of everything.

As you can imagine, something has got to give in a story this busy, and that something has to be the romance between Alison and AJ. Let me put this way: these two are still having the same conversation they had back in page 34 one hundred pages later.

AnimeJune of GossamerObsessions in unique in all of blogland in that she manages to write snarky reviews even of books she mostly likes. Here’ s a B- review of Galen Foley’s Lord of Fire:

I mean, she thinks, “Oh, this poor tortured soul – he likes poetry and long walks in the forest” and yet never, not once, thinks, “Um, seriously dude, what’s up with those orgies? I mean, a couple of Pier 1 throwrugs and a vase or two could really class up that private cave of yours.” By the end of her stay at Lucien’s estate, she starts referring to his parties as if they’re mild annoyances that involve drinking too much beer with a bunch of football buddies, instead of pretending to be the avatar of a sex god while hundreds of people knock boots at the same time.

Which reminds me – who’s responsible for cleaning that cave? Ick!

The Book Smugglers on What a Pirate Desires:

Before they can be together for reals though there is more stupidity coming from Samantha and the return of the Plantation Villain and his rapists ways. He too, has been looking for Samantha for 5 years to exact revenge and get into her tight hole one more time. *rolls eyes* What is up with these villains and their obsession with tiny tight holes anyway?

[Someone should write a paper on the proportional relationship of  snark to rapes in romance reviews.]

Finally, here’s Katibabs of Babbling About Books on Elizabeth Jennings’ (aka Lisa Marie Rice’s) Shadows at Midnight:

This TSTL move occurs when Daniel is returning Claire back to her bed and breakfast after dinner. Now, if this was a LMR, Daniel would have taken Clare to his home and given Claire too many orgasms to count. But since this is an Elizabeth Jennings’ novel, the bouncing on the sheets must wait.

I could keep going, but I think you get the idea.

I have written some snarky reviews — Passion by Lisa Valdez, Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning and Savage Lust by Gabriella Bradley to name three. I consider writing a snarky review — making myself, and hopefully others, laugh at a book I thought was flawed, gives me those couple of hours of enjoyment which the book failed to do. It’s also honest (when I write a snarky review it is because there is no other way I could communicate my true feelings about a book) and a way to let go of negative energy I accumulated when I read something I really, really didn’t like. But it takes a lot of time: snarky reviews are just as careful — maybe more so — as nonsnarky ones.

When I first started this blog, I wrote a post on the moral status of snarky reviews, which I now pretty much totally repudiate (I may even refudiate it!!), in part because in that post, I thought of reviewing in terms of my relationship with the author, rather than my relationship with my blog readers, or, even more to the point, my relationship with the book. My approach back then was wrong headed, but I guess it was a casualty not just of my youth and inexperience (heh) but of the way many book blogs seem to occupy a gray area between gushing fan sites and real (useful, honest) review sites.

One of the things that always mystified me was the claim that as long as book blogs write snarky reviews they aren’t “professional”. The people who make that claim have clearly never read a professional book review in their lives, because I can hardly think of better snark hunting grounds than The New Yorker, the NYTRB or LRB, The Guardian, or heck, even the Journal of Philosophy. Either that, or they are using the word “professional” to mean something like “nice”, i.e. something that unfairly attempts to settle the argument by definitional fiat.

As a reader of other review blogs, I like to think I can tell when a snarky review is just a way for the reviewer to try to get some attention (those snarky negative reviews do tend to garner their share), the same way I believe I can often tell when a reviewer is writing an exaggeratedly positive review of a book by her Twitter BFF or critique partner. Sometimes (but not always), the review quality suffers from those ulterior motives. But snarky reviews, I now think, are like any other reviews: good when they are informative, careful, and honest, bad when they aren’t.

But if you are reading this post and you write reviews, the chances are good that you know all this, because nowadays, if you’re one of the gals, you are, at least occasionally, one of the “mean gals”, too.

42 responses so far

It’s The Book, Stupid!: Twitter Dos and Don’ts

Aug 17 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging

A guest post by @JanetNorCal

I’ve been thinking a lot about James Carville and his motto when he was helping Bill Clinton get elected (and I know this dates me): “It’s the economy, stupid”. Ultimately an author’s books trump any and all social media.  You may love the author on Twitter, but DNF her books. You may hate the views she shares on her blog, but love her books. The bottom line is: “are her books worth reading?”

Obviously this is the merest scratch of the surface and it’s just my opinion. Many an online friend feels very differently. Without further ado, my thoughts today!

Do:


a) Share your opinions and expertise and let us know a bit of what’s behind the curtain.

b) Talk about the life of an author. I’ve read authors say I’m agonizing over which computer to buy or I’m tracking down the perfect pair of shoes before a book signing.

c) Be equally friendly to everyone, as much as you’re able. Try to exude an air of approachability.

d) Join the conversation whether it’s reality TV or a new movie or whatever is trending (just keep spoilers in mind).

e) Share your life in pictures sometimes: a great sunset, your new pet, super muffins … and make your twitter background personal and give us a glimpse into your world.

f) Have fun with twitter: make me forget you’re marketing.

g) Social media is rough and ready and no one’s grading your spelling and/or grammar. If your words are too slick, mannered or Haiku*esque, they won’t sound authentic.


Don’t:

a) Don’t constantly retweet your author (or blogger) friend’s request to get to 1,000 or 2,500 or whatever followers. So sick of those!

b) Retweeting retweeting starts to feel like spam when it’s all book and author related, again, especially if it’s your friends. If I wanted to follow them on twitter, I would.

c) WIP. Once in a while fine, all the live-long day, nope.

d) Reconsider being really really snarky and potty-mouthed. Occasionally, fine, but a steady diet of that impresses me not.

e) Don’t rip other authors a new one – this is a very subjective comment because who am I to say what anyone should say about their fellows. I can only say that even the appearance of piling on can be rather off-putting

f) When authors wear a number of different hats and share their expertise I wonder if I’m hearing from the former principal or the best seller or the hog farmer – for me it can be heavy-handed.

g) Probably no need to mention this but just in case: do not reveal plot spoilers when you have access to ARCs


If the metaphor of twitter and Facebook as the communal water cooler is a valid one, then perhaps the difference is that everything online is public rather than ephemeral. Even if one deletes a regrettable post, there’s often a record after the fact. The words of Henry Ford, quite possibly apocryphal, keep running through my head: “Never complain, never explain”. If you comment on a review that is unfortunate, if you enter into a very volatile discussion, if you talk about personal matters, you run the risk of having your words misconstrued or getting involved in a morass of back and forth that can be ultimately very unpleasant. Ultimately, it’s all a crap shoot.

Thanks Jessica, for letting me have the floor. Which is now open.

18 responses so far

Blogversary Contest (with stat reveal for the curious or bored)

Aug 03 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging, Navel gazing

I started blogging two years ago today. Back then, this blog was called Racy Romance Reviews, and my header looked like this:

In February, I took a risk by changing the blog name and URL. I forgot to forward the old links, and there was about a week of dead air. Eventually, everybody who wanted to do so found this blog again, and things were going swimmingly, until a hacker attacked. It took about three weeks to get that straightened out. So I would say this second year has been more frustrating in terms of the technology of blogging.

Interestingly, the name change has helped this blog get on the radar of some lit blogs. I think there should be more cross fertilization between genre and literary circles, so I am pleased about that.

I also “came out”, both to readers of this blog and to my friends and colleagues at home. That was a great decision, relieving some stress at being “found out”, and helping me to act on line consistently with how I act in the real world. That is, like a complete asshole. Kidding!

Everything else, though, has been great. Mostly, I do the same things I have always done — some reviews, occasionally snarky ones, some reflections on genre, and some analysis of more scholarly stuff. I added a regular feature, the Monday Morning Stepback, which has been very popular.

The blog has grown steadily in terms of readership, which is very gratifying. But the main thing is that the people whom I enjoy and admire online (whether they have their own blogs, just hang out on twitter, or make great comments on others’ blogs) read this blog.

Here are some numbers:

Total page views: 297,732

Total number of visitors: 165,353

Number of posts: 404 (about 3.5 a week)

Number of comments: 7029

Most popular post: It will forever be one of my first posts, Top 9 Most Romantic Love Scenes in Romance (13,348 views). A distant second is not a post, but a page, Reviews A-Z, with 3,666 views.

Subscribers:  550

According to Sitemeter, my average daily visitors is 300, with about 500 page views on an average day. Someone told me this number does not include the people who view this blog in a reader. I post about 3-4 times a week, so obviously, I get fewer hits on the days there is no new post.  I tend to get the highest number of visitors and page views on Monday, and then it kind of drifts downward until the weekend. Clearly, I am doing my part to make the work week less productive for a number of people.

People still find this blog by Googling weird things like “iCarly penis” and “penis pepper”, but the most popular search term is now “read react review”, which is a change from last year.

I blog for fun, for amusement, for relaxation, for a better understanding of what I read, and for making connections with other readers. This second year of blogging has provided all of that and more. I’m still having a great time in my little corner of blogland, and hope to keep it up for a third year.

To thank you, I am having my annual blogversary contest. Enter by midnight EST Sunday just by commenting on this post, and I will use random.org to pick a winner, to whom I will send any two books I have reviewed (paper only, and they have to be in print!) which she (or he) chooses. Enter only once. Open worldwide.

We’re all so busy — or at least it seems that way –  and I’m extremely grateful you take time to come over here and read what I’ve written when there are a million other things clamoring for attention.

Thanks again.

44 responses so far

Ethics and Professionalism and Blogging

Jun 19 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging, Ethics

Can I write a blog post about a conference I didn’t attend? Watch me.

The first Book Blogger Conference, a one day gig, happened a few weeks ago in New York, just after BookExpoAmerica. I want to start by saying how impressive it is to me that some book bloggers would get together and do what they did.

On the agenda, there were two speakers, in addition to a number of panels. One of those was Ron Hogan, who spoke on Ethics and Professionalism in Blogging. I was really interested in his talk, so I watched the video. I offer a summary and commentary below. Let me say for the record that I love the fact that this talk was invited, that the organizers made room on a crowded schedule for ethics, and that Hogan had a number of things to say that are interesting, important, and worth hearing. I offer disagreements and critical remarks below, because that’s how I engage with things that interest me. That’s what philosophers do. It’s not an indication of lack of respect or appreciation: quite the opposite. If the talk sucked, I wouldn’t bother with this post. I have better things to do, and so do you.

Moving on … according to his bio, Hogan

helped create the literary Internet by launching Beatrice.com in 1995. In 2010, after writing about the business side of publishing as a senior editor for GalleyCat for several years, he briefly served as the director of e-marketing strategy for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

I confess that I had never heard of Hogan prior to checking out the BBC agenda. In case any of you are in a similar boat, this piece is a nice introduction to his interests, skills, and achievements.

Anyway, here is a summary of the talk, with commentary. I did my best to be accurate, but I may have gotten something wrong. If I need to be corrected, feel free to do so.

Hogan starts out by distinguishing what professional literary critics do from what the book bloggers in the audience do:

Of course you don’t live up to the standards it sets for itself because you are doing something completely different and there are so many other ways to talk about a book than an analytical review. And many of you are doing that. You show enthusiasm. You do interviews. You contextualize things through biographical reflection. You do personal reflection, getting very specific about what a book means to you, rather than an attempt an objective analysis of it.

[It's probably true that a lot of bloggers don't strive for objectivity, but I think they achieve it, or come as close to it as any pro. Otherwise, how do we explain the common practice of declining to review certain books, i.e. books written by friends or crit partners, or books for which a reviewer has served a beta reader? How do we explain disclaimers within reviews to the effect that "this is not a type of book I normally read", etc.? To my mind, all of those are objectivity-enhancing practices.

It's true, absolutely, that book bloggers are more likely to talk about personal experiences with a book -- the way it felt to read it, especially. But to my mind, this doesn't detract from the potential of objectivity. It's also something pros do, albeit in a less explicit way. When Larry Doyle reviews Elliot Alagash: A Novel by Simon Rich in the NYTRB, calls it "funny" and recounts the "nasty pleasures" it provides, does anyone think he is measuring the novel against an objective (i.e. has-nothing-to-do-with-Larry-Doyle's-subjective-preferences) standard of "humor" and "pleasure"? Or, to take another random example, when the LRB's Nicholas Spice says of Phillip Roth's Everyman, that it is "disagreeable", or that its formal intricacy is "the most interesting thing about it", I have to ask "disagreeable and interesting to whom"?

Doyle and Spice compare the subjects of their reviews with other books in the author's oeuvre, and with similar books published before or since. So maybe it's their knowledge of their subject that sets them apart? Um, no. In my websurfing, good genre fiction bloggers do the exact same thing ("This Nora Roberts is a bit steamier than her usual"; "I think we have seen this hero before in an earlier Julia Quinn novel; "With this book, J. R. Ward has moved from romance into urban fantasy" etc.). There are differences, but I think they are mainly stylistic, and of degree rather than kind. I also think they have more to do with the self-image and goals of the reviewer than content of the reviews.

Hogan began his talk by saying that the "war between the bloggers and professional reviewers is over, and that the bloggers won." But I wonder how it's a "win" if they are not even playing the same game?]

Hogan then defines what “professional” means for this group:

“Professional” for most of you is not about drawing a paycheck or commission or freelance sort of thing. That’s not what professionalism is to you. It is about living up to a certain standard of excellence or a certain standard of performance.

[I appreciate, from personal experience, how hard it is to talk to a diverse group of people. There is no way anyone could address all of the different interests of the audience in one talk. But I just want to point out -- and I am not saying that Hogan, of all people, doesn't know this --  that many book bloggers are, or hope to be, professionals in the sense of earning money and making a living: some are aspiring authors, editors, publishers, or marketers, and some are aspiring to -- and do -- earn a living directly from their blogs.  So, I think it's worth noting that many of these "amateur" bloggers have complex and intricate relations with commercial interests -- which serve their own economic interests --  from taking ARCs to serving as stops on publicity tours to joining with bookstores to ad revenue, Amazon vine, you name it. Finally, even those who book blog "for fun" are often contributing in some way to their family's finances, even if it's just saving money on purchased books. No, not a profession, but not somehow outside our economic system either. If you can hear the grinding of a feminist axe, you have good ears. I'm a little sensitive about this because economic history is littered with descriptions of the public sphere that describe anything women do as non-public, non-commercial, non-political, etc.]

Hogan then adapts Seth Godin’s techniques for making yourself indispensable to your employer. Godin, also a new name to me, and again from his bio, is the “author of the most popular marketing blog in the world”, and “of the bestselling marketing books of the last decade”.

[I confess I was skeptical right away. How do we get from professionalism to marketing? Hogan has just told us that book bloggers aren't interested in professionalism in the usual (paycheck earning) sense, but rather in the sense of a standard of excellence. So it feels like a bit of a nonsequitur to hand the talk over to a guy known for helping people sell things, especially themselves.]

Hogan relies mainly on Godin’s book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (Review here). He says,

I am going to jump off from the specific qualities that he talks about and tinker a bit with the qualities that he raises … and we’ll talk about them in our kind of environment.

So, here are the 7 qualities for making yourself indispensable to your employer or — in the case at hand — your blogging audience:

1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization — what is it that binds you and your readers? What is the passion that you share? The book and authors that you love, and the ways that you love them. Each of you must identify that quality for yourself, for your blog, and for your audience in your own unique way.

2. Delivering a unique creativity — what makes your blog stand out?

3. Managing a situation or organization of deep complexity — there are so many books published, no one can cover it all. “What are you zoomed in on and bringing to people’s attention?”

4. Leading customers — “Where are you pointing your readers? …  You have a mission or point, whatever that is. What is it? What will result from the conversation you are starting?”

5. Inspiring staff — you are inspiring readers simply by being out there. What are you inspiring them to do? It is an ongoing movement. Where is it headed?

6. Possessing Deep Domain Knowledge — Do you know the territory? — You are an expert of some kind, even if it is only in the field of “books I love.”

7. Possessing a unique talent — What perspective do you bring? What do you have to say about those books that will draw people back to your site day after day?

So those are sort of the professional standards, and professionalism meaning standard of performance, the kinds of things that you might want to try to live up to as you are sitting there at the keyboard. Not necessarily in a very conscious way, but simply as things that would inform your actions on a very organic level.

[Contrary to my initial skepticism, I liked the adaptation Godin's qualities to blogging, and Hogan's questions were thought provoking for me, especially #5. On the other hand, I'm not seeing the connection between these 7 qualities and "professionalism". Godin's idea was to provide ways for employees to make themselves  indispensable so they don't lose their jobs. When I think of a "standard of excellence" for book bloggers, I think of different things. Qualities like honesty, diplomacy, sanguinity, and reliability, for example, and specific comprehension, communication, writing, and technological skills. But maybe that's just me.]

Hogan moves from here to the next segment of his talk:

So the ethical part of the conversation is that just as you shouldn’t accept somebody else’s standard of professionalism willy nilly, you shouldn’t necessarily allow book critics or professional journalists to impose their standard of ethics on you because their standard of ethics is not necessarily applicable to what you do. It’s applicable to what they do, and it’s created specifically to respond to their circumstances … but it’s not your set of circumstances and, you know, frankly, why would you need to declare a code of ethics?

Hogan says that bloggers don’t need a code of ethics because either you are trustworthy or you aren’t and no code of ethics will change that reality. You shouldn’t have to say that you are trustworthy — you should just be trustworthy. Citing Godin, Hogan notes that codes of ethics evolved when commerce developed to the point that business associates did not necessarily know each other, and they needed a standardized sign of trustworthiness. Hogan says that we don’t need a code of ethics to trust bloggers we love because we have let them into our hearts already.

[I agree with Hogan here, in principle (heh) as I will explain below, but I have no idea what he meant when he said that last line. I think there are lots of good reasons to develop a code of ethics that go unexplored here. It's more about the effect of the process on the self-understanding of the people to whom the code applies, than about getting readers/customers/clients to trust you. The bigger problem, to my mind, with developing a code of ethics for book bloggers is that it is such a diverse group, with different aims and audiences, that it would be hard to come up with anything not unhelpfully general and superficial.]

Hogan then moves on to define what “ethics” means to him:

Ethics to me are not about the principles that you lay out but about the questions that you are asking from the starting point.

[I like this very much.]

Noting that principles have exceptions, Hogan suggests moral particularism, where it’s

not about the codified principles but rules of thumb by talking about the situation and seeing where people are coming from from a variety of different perspectives and sort of laying out some guidelines but not hard and fast ‘you must do this or you are an unethical person’ sort of rules.’

[Here Hogan is wading into philosophical ethics, with not very satisfying results, to me at least. It's a long way from "principles have exceptions" to "moral particularism" (most principlists recognize the need for context sensitivity and for exceptions), and a long way from "moral particularism" to "we don't need principles" (most particularists think we do), but the bigger problem is that I don't think this detour did any work for him in the talk. That is, the debate between particularism and its opponents is really a metaethical debate about the structure of moral judgment, and isn't really helpful in discerning which moral judgments are right or which ones have a better claim on us. My own rule of thumb is to avoid direct discussion of arguments in ethical theory whenever possible when giving ethics talks, unless there is absolutely no other way to make my point.]

Hogan proceeds to demonstrate this ethical approach by discussing two issues:

1. Do you talk about how you got your books, i.e., the FTC thing.

We get a summary of the issue. Hogan says that disclosure is not something we have to do, but we can choose to do it for any number of personal reasons. Not doing it is a personal choice. So again “it’s not a hard and fast rule one way or the other. It’s this is right for me, this is right for you.”

[I detected no ethics in this discussion whatsoever. In fact, the implicit claim is more or less that disclosure is a matter of personal preference, not a matter of ethics. By definition, an ethical matter is one for which you have to provide public reasons of some form more compelling than "this is what I want to do". It is fine with me if someone doesn't think disclosure is an ethical issue -- that's a legitimate position to take. But let's be clear on what we are doing.]

2. Do you ask people to write for your blog for free?  Hogan makes a reference to the keynote speaker, who said she didn’t like blog tours. His next example is the Huffington Post, which doesn’t pay its writers, yet makes loads of money off of their content.  Hogan notes that this presents a potentially exploitative situation. But

I don’t have an answer for you that would fit every set of circumstances. And I don’t think anybody does. It’s an ethical decision that each of us has to make of our own accord. … You have to look within your heart and ask yourself, ‘is this what I want to accomplish in terms of all those kinds of qualities I talked about before of your professionalism?’ The choices that you make ethically, are they steering you toward the standards that you set for yourself as a blogger and as a writer and as a communicator. And are you doing that in a way that is helpful to everybody rather than harmful to anybody?

[While I see the HuffPo point, I actually had a hard time understanding what the ethical issue is here with book bloggers. Anyway, we get a glimmer of a substantive ethical approach in the last line, a sort of consequentialism (i.e. take the action has the best consequences for everybody affected, however "best (goodest)" is defined. Here, best seems to mean "helpfulness".) But just a glimmer. You know what would have been great here? To move beyond "context counts" to talking about one specific case and working through it. I can understand choosing not to tell other people what they should and should not do, but then how about talking about, as he said earlier, the ethical realm in which he is truly expert --  Beatrice.com?  I would have loved to hear what his standards are for his blog/s, and how his standards dictate a certain response to the disclosure issue, and how that has worked out for him and for those affected by it. Because I can think of a lot of ways to meet the "professional" standards of 1-7 that are pretty darn unethical. So being more specific here could have shown how 1-7 can work as ethical standards, or at least how those professional standards might intersect with ethical concerns to generate a satisfying resolution in a particular case.]

I gather that Hogan, like any good speaker, left a lot of time for Q&A, and I would have loved to hear if some of his points were fleshed out during the less formal part of the presentation. As this talk shows, professionalism, marketing, ethics, community, and reviewing intersect in complex and new ways for book bloggers, and I’m glad knowledgeable people in the book blogosphere are taking the time and creating the space to reflect on these issues.

14 responses so far

RRR Questionnaire Extraordinaire: Rosario of Rosario’s Reading Journal

Jun 08 2010 Published by under RRR Questionnaire Extraordinaire

Rosario’s blog is Rosario’s Reading Journal

Tagline: “Book reviews from a Uruguayan reader”

About: “Reviews, reviews and more reviews.”

Rosario’s was one of the first blogs I found when I entered Romanceland, and I came to admire her to-the-point reviewing style, and the depth and breadth of her knowledge of the genre.  I mentioned Rosario in my very first post back on August 3, 2008:

I’d like to remember what I’ve read and how those books struck me when I read them. The model for the “review and record” aspect of this blog is Rosario, whose blog is one of my inspirations.

I have also long admired her singleness of purpose and incredible organization. Rosario’s Reading Journal is a terrific example of doing one thing and doing it very well. Her first post is dated August 26, 2002. She wrote:

My first post! I’ll be back as soon as I figure out what I’m doing.

Well, she did come back, and she has been coming back for nearly 8 years, to the tune of over 1500 reviews.

I was so pleased when Rosario managed to find time in her busy schedule to answer a slew of questions. I found her reflections fascinating. I hope you do, too.

0. When did you start reading romances?

I started reading romance novels in my early teens, but I had unknowingly been looking for them since I can remember. Even when really young and with books that weren’t romances, I was always drawn to whatever little romance there was in them. Mi grandpa had the entire collection of Emilio Salgari’s adventure novels (80+ of them!), and I remember digging into those when I was about 7 or 8. There was a bit of everything there, but the ones I’d reread again and again were books with good romances in them, like Captain Storm, which starred a Venetian countess who dressed up as a knight to fight in the war and fell in love with an Ottoman warrior, the Lion of Damascus. I haven’t read it in ages, so I don’t know how good it might have been, but back then, I loved it to pieces.

I then went on to Victoria Holt and all the rest of her pseudonyms and, finally in my early teens, discovered Harlequins and a couple of Janet Dailey novels my mom had in her shelves. That was a revelation: books where the romance was the whole point of the story, and I didn’t have to dig through piles of stuff that didn’t really interest me just to find a few nuggets? Brilliant. Soon after that, I found Kathleen Woodiwiss’ Shanna (in my school library, of all places) and started looking for other historical romances in bookshops.

This was Uruguay in the early 90s, though, so it was all a bit hit or miss. The couple of bookstores that ordered books in English didn’t order specific books, it was just by the box, and they got whatever their supplier had a surplus of. It wasn’t until the internet came along that I started being able to find out about specific titles. I made my first order from Amazon in 1998 (and paid about twice as much for shipping to Uruguay as I did for the actual books, ouch!) and never looked back.

1. What motivated you to start your blog?

The most prosaic of reasons: I needed to practice my English. I attended a bilingual school in Uruguay, but by 2002 I’d been out of regular English classes for 6 years. Because I wasn’t practicing my written English, writing even a simple, two-paragraph email was a chore and took me an hour. Obviously, the only way to fix that was to start regularly writing in that language again, but I knew that unless I found a reason to actually want to do so, I’d give up after the first few times. I needed to write about something I was passionate about and I needed to have a purpose, and a romance review blog was the best I could come up with.

2. How has it changed over the years?

Not much, really. There have been cosmetic changes, like adding images, and doing a single post for each book (for the first months I’d post about a book as I went along in my reading, so I’d have several posts about a single title), but not much else. Although, well, I want to think that the quality of my reviews has increased as I’ve got more practice!

3. Most review blogs do other things besides reviews, but you have stayed true to your review mission. Have you ever felt tempted to write another kind of post? Why or why not?

At the beginning I did try to post a few different things… personal news, opinion pieces, comments about industry developments, links to interesting articles, memes, that sort of thing. I soon realised I just didn’t feel comfortable doing it. I felt like I couldn’t hit on the right tone. I’d come back to something I’d written and think “what a pretentious git” :-D  What I’ve never been too interested in doing is promo. While I don’t mind a little of it in industry blogs or websites, it’s not what I’m looking for in personal blogs, so I won’t put it in mine. I’ve learnt to stick to what I like (and hopefully, do well!).

4. How have your reading tastes changed over the years, if at all?

I’m pickier about quality now (some of the books I gave As to in 2002… oy!), but what I’m looking for in a book hasn’t actually changed all that much. Of course, when I first started reading romance there was still a lot of bodice-ripping going on and way too many alpha-asshole “heroes” and feisty hair-tossing, foot-stamping child-like heroines, but even though I read those books, I always hated those elements, and wished I could get my romance without having to put up with them. I just didn’t have the choice at the time, and I’m very happy I do now.

5. Do you think the romance genre has changed? What are some of the most significant changes in your eyes?

I know lots of readers feel that the genre has become homogeneous over the years, with fewer and fewer settings and authors constantly jumping on whatever the new big trend is, but I think it’s more complicated than that. In terms of who the protagonists can be, in my opinion, there’s much more variety. It’s most obvious with heroines, and I do love that. These days female characters can be strong, they can go toe to toe with the hero and actually win (without then being punished for it, either), they can be sexually experienced, they can make mistakes and be flawed, and they’re still allowed to be heroines. As for the heroes, although the over-the-top alpha is still as popular as ever, I feel different conceptions of masculinity have become acceptable in romance novels now.

6. How do you foresee the romance genre changing in the next decade?

I think romance novels do reflect contemporary sensibilities, only they run a few years behind what’s happening in the real world. So I would expect heroines in contemps to continue to become more like real contemporary women (too many today read 30 years older than they’re supposed to be) and HEAs to reflect more of the variety that I see all around me (couples choosing not to have children, the man being the one to stay home with the kids, etc.).

Also, it seems to me the YA and romance genres have began to mix quite a bit, with many romance readers also going for YA in a big way, and many YA books containing really lovely romances. So maybe in the next few years, as YA readers grow up, they’ll start seeking out romance novels. Hopefully that will lead to more of what I described above and even to a narrowing of that gap, but it might also lead to more fights about the definition of romance, as YA readers seem to be more flexible about their HEAs.

And of course, it probably doesn’t even need to be said that there will be new big trends and it will seem every author is jumping on them (which trends? Ah, if only I had that crystal ball! I can only hope the next one is steampunk romance, which seems to be taking off a bit lately).

7. How has your life changed from 2002 to 2010? Are your life changes reflected in your reading choices, or in the way you blog?

My life now is nothing like it was in 2002. Romance novels are probably one of the very few constants, actually! Back then I lived in Uruguay, with my parents and had a job which, while a good learning opportunity, wasn’t really going anywhere. I now live in England, in my own house, and have a proper career I love.

I’d never thought of it, but this (especially moving to England) really has impacted on my reading choices. When I was in Uruguay I was reading almost exclusively romance, with a smattering of mystery. That was mainly because AAR was the only place I could get recommendations I trusted enough to actually go through the trouble and considerable expense of getting the books all the way to Uruguay. Not to mention, mass markets are a lot cheaper and lighter than anything else (ergo, lower shipping charges), and my Uruguayan pesos didn’t buy too many dollars back during the big recession we had in 2002. Now I’ve got access to a pretty good library system and my salary is in pounds (yeah, not *that* great these days), so I’m trying a lot more of other stuff, especially non fiction, knowing that I can just drop books after 20 pages if they don’t interest me. Unfortunately, I’m also reading less than I did, as I have less time and more other things competing for it.

8. What was “Romanceland” like — if it even existed — when you started out in 2002?

At the time, Romanceland for me was just the All About Romance boards and the yahoo groups associated with them. I know there were other places I didn’t frequent, but they were along similar lines… message boards and email lists. The romance blogosphere just didn’t exist. The only other romance-related blog I was aware of was the one that Laurie, from AAR, had just started. In fact, it was hers that gave me the idea of starting one myself. Wendy the Superlibrarian started hers soon after, but that was it for quite a while. For the first year or so, I didn’t get more than a couple of comments from romance readers (which might be why I don’t particularly care about traffic figures, even today).

In terms of the discussions themselves, the biggest difference that comes to mind is that now there is a general acceptance about the value of negative reviews that just wasn’t all that general back then. These days pretty much all authors accept that readers and reviewers have the right not to like their books and say so (even if there are still arguments about the appropriate tone to use), but in 2002 there was a lot more of the “how dare you!!!!” attitude, both from authors and other readers.

9. What has surprised you the most about how the online romance community has changed since 2002?

Its meteoric growth. New blogs and sites pop up practically every day, and whatever sort of involvement you want, you’ll be able to find a place for yourself.

10. What has made you the most happy about the way Romanceland has changed since 2002?

The sheer size and variety of it now, and the fact that there are plenty of places where I can get the level and depth of analysis of issues that I like (including your blog, and I’m not just saying that because you’re interviewing me *g*). The one internet kerfuffle I’m still pissed off about after all these years is one that happened in AAR’s message boards. There was a group of posters who’d have the most wonderful, in-depth discussions, which I relished reading (I’d actually save their posts to read when I had time to enjoy them properly), but they were basically ran off the boards by a group of idiots that complained that they were hogging the discussion and that their posts were too long and made them feel dumb (some people now deny that’s how it was, but those are my memories of the episode, and I’m sticking to them. People actually did say that the posts made them feel dumb). Of course, these days, those great posters would just set up their own blogs and they’d be pretty easy to find, but back then, I had no way of finding out where they’d gone and it was really annoying.

11. Are you dismayed at all by any of the changes in the online romance community?

Oh, dear, I feel like I’m picking on AAR, but here goes. I find the us-vs-them mentality towards blogs that I perceive in their boards quite upsetting. Just to make myself completely clear, this is not something that’s coming from the people who run them, but from several frequent and long-time posters. I’ve been visiting forever and ever, years before I even started my blog (gosh, come to think of it, I think I was actually in my teens when I first followed LLB over from The Romance Reader!), and it’s always been a big part of my reading life, so it’s sad to be made to feel unwelcome by a minority of loud twits.

12. What, if anything, do you feel is missing in the online romance community? How do you foresee it growing in the next decade?

That’s a tough one. I don’t think I’ve ever consciously realised anything was missing in the romance community until it (whatever “it” was) showed up. I suppose I’d like a bit more of an international perspective, sometimes. Most of the bloggers I’m aware of live in the English-speaking world (even me, now!), and I’d love to hear more from, oh, I don’t know, all those people who read Mills & Boon in India, or whoever’s reading the Spanish translations of single titles I see when I go back to Latin America.

How do I foresee the community growing? Well, “growing” is the operative word here. It will only keep growing. There might be more formats (like a lot of the discussion has moved to twitter now), but it will still be there years from now.

13. What are some blogs you enjoy reading?

I follow a ridiculous number of blogs, but my absolute favourites are Dear Author, The Book Smugglers, Wendy the Superlibrarian, KristieJ’s , jmc’s, and Aneca’s World . I’ve also got a few on my Google reader that haven’t been too active for a while, in the perpetual hope they’ll start blogging regularly again. Those include Jennie’s B(ook)log, ReneeW, Tara Marie, And yours. I did mention I enjoy yours, right? [Thank you, Rosario, for reading the fine print in the RRR interview contract.]

14. I don’t notice you making many comments on other blogs — although I am happy to see you on Twitter. Why not?

Oh, but I do comment, only not as much as I used to, I’m afraid. I’m always too late now! Since I travel quite a lot, most of my blog reading (and I do follow quite a few, just see above) is now done on my phone, and I just don’t find that conducive to writing comments. I can do the “I  liked that book, too!” kind of thing there, but not proper comments. I’ll often mark posts as unread to comment the next time I’m at a normal computer, but by that time, the discussion has either moved on or someone has made the point I wanted to make, so I just let it go.

15. One of your all time favorite authors is Nora Roberts. What are your favorite books by Nora? Have you found her books have changed over time? In what ways?

My top fave is one that doesn’t come up a lot, Midnight Bayou. [Rosario's review here.] Strong, interesting heroine, beta, dreamy hero, atmospheric setting and a really unique paranormal subplot. I also have a soft spot for Born in Fire (it was my first Nora ever, and the romance is almost a prototype of the Eve and Roarke relationship, which I also love) [Rosario's reread review here.]  and Birthright [Rosario's review here].

Nora’s books I feel have changed less than the genre as a whole, but that’s because her books always felt more modern and up-to-date, and the others have only been closing the gap in that respect. Back in the 90s, when anyone made the argument that the reason even contemporary heroines in their 30s had to be virgins was that otherwise they wouldn’t sell, I always brought up Nora’s success. *Her* heroines didn’t need to find contrived excuses to be virgins, and that didn’t make her sell any fewer books!

16. What is a new favorite author or book?

I’ve found plenty of wonderful new authors in the past few years, but Meljean Brook is the clear standout. Her Guardian series is amazing, with both excellent romances and a world that is fascinating and complex, yet completely coherent. Oh. And great writing. My favourite thing about the writing is that not everything is spelt out, and you feel like the author trusts your intelligence enough to understand.

17. How long do you think you will keep writing romance reviews?

Until I stop enjoying it and it becomes a chore, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon!

Thank you, Rosario!!

22 responses so far

Goals, Objectives and Blogging

Mar 20 2010 Published by under Blogs and blogging

Have you looked at a college course syllabus lately? They have “goals” and “objectives”. The goals are the general intentions of the course, while the objectives are the concrete things that students will learn. The objectives are specific ways to meet the goal.

So in an Intro to Philosophy course, a goal might be something abstract, like “students will gain a greater appreciation of the history of Western philosophical thought”, and an objective would be something narrower, and measurable, like “students will be able to describe the difference between rationalism and empiricism”.

There is a lot of advice online about blogging, sometimes an overwhelming amount. It tends to focus on objectives (usually referred to as “strategies”). I find that much of the advice and strategizing is irrelevant to my goals. It helps me to have my goals in mind when I consider whether to spend time reading what someone has written about a strategy.

I know some of you are reading this and thinking “I don’t have ANY goals with regard to blogging. I just do what’s fun and what I feel like.”

I think that as human beings we act for reasons, which are a kind of intention or goal. When most people say “I don’t have a blogging goal”, I interpret that as “I don’t think about goals.” But there is a difference between not thinking about goals and not having a goal.

Blogging is a human activity, and as such, it is purposeful. The only things we “do” that aren’t purposeful are things like breathing and blinking. So when someone says “I have no blogging goals”, I interpret that as “My goal is not to get bogged down by blogging and to keep it spontaneous and fun.” People who say they don’t have any goals usually do have them, and if you look closely, they also have strategies they use to meet them. For example, the person who says “I have no blogging goals” usually won’t read a post like this when it shows up in her reader. Not reading posts about blogging goals is an objective which serves to meet your goal of not thinking about your blogging and keeping it spontaneous and fun.

I think part of the issue is the word “goal” and what it connotes in our culture. We think it means conscious, striving, effortful, competitive, “work-related”, maybe monetized. But when I go on vacation, my goal is to relax and not think about anything. That’s a goal, but it’s quite the opposite of effortful and tiring and competitive.

Anyway, it occurred to me as I was reading the agenda for the Book Blogger Convention in New York in May (which looks great and which I would love to attend), that several of the panels did not interest me, because they meet objectives for goals I don’t have as a blogger. For example, the panel on marketing or the panel on the relationship between authors and blogger.

I recall having an email exchange with a fellow blogger and talking about stats. It quickly became apparent that all I cared about was subscribers and comments (number and quality) and all she cared about were number of hits and her placement in search engine rankings. It hit me that we had different goals. Mine was more focused on building community, which means repeat visitors and comments, and hers was more on visibility and reach. To meet my goal, I have to do certain things, and to meet her goal, she has to do different things. Or we might do the same things, but to meet different goals. So she might have a contest to generate interest in her blog and increase her numbers, and I might do a contest for a friend who has written a book, or to thank my readers helping me answer a particular question.

For someone more interested in community, it is more important that those people who are valuable contributors keep coming back. Not losing (good) contributors is the focus. For someone interested in, say, monetizing their blog, it is going to be important to see those numbers grow. This might mean paying more attention to what posts generate a lot of interest and hits. It won’t matter quite as much whether the same people keep coming back, but whether more and more people do. For someone who wants to be acknowledged as an expert in her blogging field, being on top of news is going to be very important. To meet that goal she’ll have the objective of doing timely links posts, and to meet that objective she’ll have to be on line a lot, to gather the news via Twitter, feeds, etc.

And these goals aren’t mutually exclusive. Building a good community is a way of growing in numbers, for example, which is a way to better monetize.

I don’t think about my blogging goals every day or every post. But I find it helpful to take a step back and ask myself about them every so often. Recently, when I changed the blog’s name, I realized that I had goals that the blog could help me meet, goals which are outside of the blog itself. Specifically, I could use this blog as a place to think out loud about issues in philosophy of fiction, a subject none of my real world colleagues work on. This will help with both teaching and research. So one issue I became more conscious of is the difference between goals for the blog, versus goals that the blog can help me achieve. (And they are not always compatible: my posts on philosophy of fiction tend not to generate a lot of discussion!) Now my thinking about “blog goals” encompasses both.

Reflecting on blog goals helps me to shuck interest in things that waste time, it helps with focus, it helps with crafting a clear blog identity, it helps minimize the stressful feeling that I should be doing “more”, and it helps with identifying the difference between blogs I merely enjoy versus blogs I want to learn from and emulate. As blogging goals change — and they do — raising my head out of a particular post and looking at the big picture helps clarify and solidify that change (at least for the moment, since goals will likely change again, and again). I recommend it!

6 responses so far

HaMPO: Help A Moral Philosopher Out: Live Blogging An Academic Conference, Ethics of

Mar 14 2010 Published by under Academia, Blogs and blogging, Ethics

Welcome to my new feature, HaMPO, in which someone who has a PhD and 10 years professional experience in her field cannot answer what should be a pretty simple question:

Is it ok to blog an academic conference?

We are coming up on the National Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association annual meeting. Last year, I blogged several sessions. I ran into a few “issues”:

1. I got a point in one presenter’s paper wrong. I edited the post. But I only knew this because I had sent her a link to the post. She likely would not have seen it otherwise.
2. One presenter took me to task for not getting her permission. I removed my discussion of her paper from the blog at her request.
3. Some of the blog commenters got a little heated/dismissive in their remarks on papers they disagreed with, not exactly keeping to the tone of academic discourse

Last year there was a big issue at Cold Spring Harbor Lab when bloggers live blogged a conference there. Apparently CSHL has a set of clear rules for journalists, which include getting permission from the speakers in advance, but bloggers kind of went in under the radar. Now the rules are the same for bloggers and journalists (a more detailed discussion here). While I think the worries about live blogging even a restricted conference like the Biology of Genomes are overstated, and the benefits of blogging the presentations understated, the issues with presentations at CSHL might be a little different than issues at PCA. In particular, the CSHL conference is billed as a small forum for researchers to present work in progress in a particular kind of supportive environment. I would think you could attend another conference if you didn’t like the restrictions.

But back to PCA. There are no formal rules, so attendees like me will have to figure out for ourselves what is appropriate and what isn’t. Could a Bloggers’ Code of Ethics help?

Well, there’s this section:

Minimize Harm
Ethical bloggers treat sources and subjects as human beings deserving of respect.
Bloggers should:
• Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of information is not a license for arrogance.
• Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.

Here’s an excerpt on harm from another Code, from Upstart: The Magazine for Aspring Journalists

9. Consider the possible effects of every post you make

Bloggers should not set out to be intentionally hurtful to other individuals in the course of their blogging, in fact the ethical blogger should take steps to minimise harm to others wherever possible. Pro-blogger Jaime McD suggests that bloggers should adhere to the Golden Rule when blogging, namely, treat others as you would be treated yourself.

We can note first that both these codes map blogging ethics onto journalist ethics. I am not sure that is appropriate, especially for blogs like this one. So, for example, I may have special duties as a blogging academic that have nothing to do with journalism, or special duties relating to feminism, or literature as a public good, etc.

Could blogging about conference presentations cause harm? Four possibilities come to mind:

1. Maybe someone reading this blog will scoop the presenter’s WIP, stealing her thesis and getting an article into print first. The presenter loses a publication and time spent on research. This could affect her chances for getting tenure (this would not be an issue for presenters who are presenting published or forthcoming work, of course).

2. Blog commenters are harshly critical of the presenter, in a way no one in an academic audience would be. They write things like, “That is just stupid” or “What a dumbass!”. It is hurtful to the presenter — not a reaction she was prepared for, and she worries it will devalue her work if it is the first thing that shows up in a Google search.

3. It is not the presenter’s best work. In fact, it is really not ready for prime time. She hates the idea that it is online for posterity, when she plans to radically alter or abandon the research post conference.

4. The Golden Rule bit from the second code: suppose I gave a paper that, because of 1, 2, or 3, I did not want blogged. Would I expect any bloggers present to obtain my permission?

Moving away from harm, another way of looking at this is in terms of ownership of the material. The “consent” requirement suggests a kind of ownership. That is, as a blogger, I don’t have the right to do with that material what I want. It’s the presenter’s.

Most of these issues could be resolved by obtaining the speakers’ permission. I don’t think, after my experience last year, that I can assume consent. I also don’t think that sitting in the front row and typing furiously alerts the presenters to my intentions clearly enough that I could be confident they that have given tacit consent by not stopping me.

But then, how would consent be obtained? Hand everyone a business card after the conference, telling them about the blog and assuming they will tell me? Ask them directly? Email them?

I confess I hate the consent idea, mostly because it is time consuming enough to write the blogs, never mind chasing all of these people down, and partly because I do feel I shouldn’t have to obtain consent for reporting on something I experienced in a public forum. How is this different from tweeting about a rock concert (“they just played my favorite song, and they botched it!”). can a rock band really say “I was only playing to Providence. I didn’t want the whole world to know how we played that night!”

If I go ahead without consent, should at least give them a card or email them the URL and invite them to make corrections if necessary?

What about counterbalancing ethical concerns? Are there any ethical arguments in favor of blogging the conference? I tend to be skeptical about this in terms of my little blog, but here goes. Possibly the goods of disseminating information, and any ancillary goods that come from that, like contacts being made (someone reads this blog, finds out Julie Juniper is working on her topic, they get in touch, they collaborate or develop some other mutually beneficial exchange), or academics who were not able to attend the conference (maybe they were ill or couldn’t afford it) getting to stay updated in their field a bit, or nonacademics, i.e. most readers of RRR, benefiting by getting a glimpse into a different way of approaching their favorite books, and enjoying this or learning from it.

One penultimate question: I was slightly dismayed by some of the comments last year. This is a “worlds colliding” thing. No comment was beyond the pale in terms of blogging, but when I put my academic hat on, I was uncomfortable. Should I issue a warning on the post? Wade in and defend the presenter? Close comments? (the last of these would defeat most of the purpose of blogging the conference, though).

And a final one two: does it matter how detailed the blog posts are (maybe I can defuse criticism and reap the benefits if I merely summarize briefly)? And does it matter, ethically speaking, if I offer my own critique (positive and negative) of the paper?

PS. I’ve blogged about this before, but as you can see, I am still unsettled. Also, I was joking about HaMPO being a new feature. It’s not. But I would love your opinions on this!

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