The Blog Squad - Part 17

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K

BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

Author Interaction - Your Take

Having been blogging for over a year now (yes, I missed my blogiversary) I’ve come to the conclusion that there must be some sort of unwritten rule that stops authors and bloggers actually interacting on book blogs.*

Twitter seems to be the place where all forms of interaction happen, and I’ve actually been tweeted by an author telling me how much they liked my review and especially xyz aspect of it. After I stopped flailing around (because OBVIOUSLY that’s what you do when an author of a book you LOVE tweets you directly), I had to stop to wonder… I mean, clearly that author has been to my blog and read my review, right? Maybe I was tweeted because it’s more public and that’s the platform that the author prefers to use? Or maybe it’s considered rude for an author to comment on a review of their own book? I don’t even know? But personally I LOVE author interaction and I kind of wish it could happen more, both on social media AND on my blog…

Of course there could be some negative interaction… And that’s no good - but hey, we’re out here in the public voicing our opinions so of course there’s going to be some come back on that and as bloggers we have to expect that sometimes.

*Or is there a set of written rules that I missed when I signed up for my book blog and I have been in the dark for all this time???

I agree with Di about authors not interacting with you on your blog. I haven’t really thought about it until now but it’s a good point. I suppose they just don’t have time to comment on the glowing review you’ve written of their book? I guess? That’s totally understandable, but it’s a thought-provoking point Di’s made.

However, I would LOVE it if one day an author did comment on my review of his or her book (a positive review, of course ;) Once, an author commented on my Waiting on Wednesday post when it was his book that was I was featuring, and that was AWESOME.

As for Twitter…..Oh, it’s always AMAZING when an author retweets your tweet or replies to it or likes it or follows you AND I ALWAYS HAVE A MINI HEART ATTACK WHEN THAT HAPPENS!! (actually not so mini). It’s seriously awesome, and I so admire and respect those authors who take the time to reply to comments and interact with their readers. It’s so inspiring. For example, Stephanie Garber - author of Caraval - is one of the sweetest authors I’ve ever interacted with online. She replies to almost every tweet and makes such an amazing effort to connect with her readers. She’s brilliant, and so inspiring.

I’m so honoured and grateful I’ve gotten to interact with the most incredible authors online, and they repeatedly inspire me to do the same if one day I become a well-known writer myself.  

Have you ever had a troll on your blog/social media?

Thankfully I haven’t - yet. I know it happens a lot and while I might have had a couple of biting remarks on various things (maybe I didn’t love a book that EVERYONE else did) generally comments on my blog have all been positive. Maybe I just don’t do the ‘social’ part of social media enough to warrant trolls.

Hmmm...does an author troll count?! Probably not, so otherwise there hasn’t really been anyone who’s harassed me over social media. Yet. And I know I’m seriously lucky.

What do you do about negative feedback?

I do try not to take things too personally and I do think there’s always a way that you can take negative feedback and turn it into some sort of constructive criticism, even if it wasn’t meant in that way in the first place.

Although you may want everyone to respect your opinion you have to remember that we’re on a public platform here and that’s just not going to happen. We can’t be everything for everyone.

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

― John Lydgate

I think the key is to remember that you can take all your feedback and try to use it constructively, you can try to learn from whatever feedback you get and let it help you grow, but there are always critical people out there and sometimes critical people just can’t be satisfied.

I agree with Di: taking negative criticism as constructive criticism is what I try to do, too. It can definitely still hurt, though, but I try to look at it more optimistically. That being said, I’m with Di on how you can’t please everyone. You’d be constantly changing your blog design (for example) if you listened to everything everyone ever said about it.  I think you have to try “separate” yourself - to an extent - from the negative criticisms you’ll get. It can get extremely demoralizing, and take the pleasure away from blogging altogether.  

I also totally agree with Uma about mistakes being pointed out in widgets or reviews, etc. That feedback is ABSOLUTELY welcome, and I see it as helpful rather than negative.

But truth be told, I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to criticising my blog and content and photos, etc etc. So it’s a lose-lose situation, I guess ;) But sometimes I just have to force myself to suck it up and chill.

Go over to their collab posts to know my answers!:

❤ Book Reviews by Di
❤ A Magical World of Words

We hope you’ve enjoyed the latest in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.

Stay tuned for next week’s questions!