Today, I met with a dilemma that clearly showed me how easy it could be for me to go down a blogging road that isn’t heading where I want to be.
I have received my first request to review a book.
Let there be no doubt that I was immensely flattered. After all, someone asked me to review a book for them. I was about to say yes when wisdom (for once) stayed my hands.
Here is why I wanted to do it:
I love helping others in the writing community and this person asked me to help their cause of getting the book out there. One day, I will need people to review my books too… So it should count as karmic brownie points, right?
Here’s why I said no without even opening the ARC:
The one thing that sticks with me on this blogging experience is that the voice in the writing (or what gets posted on Fridays) is me. All of me.
Even the not so nice bits.
Those not so nice bits of me do make it onto my blog, but in small amounts (I hope) and as such should never damage my image as a person beyond a point that I can tolerate. Sorry if this seems very calculating, but it is a truth that anyone should consider before they post something.
Yes, I have apologized once or twice for making people uncomfortable with my opinion, but not FOR my opinion, which stays constant unless someone or something gives me a valid reason to change my mind.
If I were to agree to review a book, I would run a very real risk of not liking it. And the Author would (blindly?) be taking the worst-case-scenario risk that I will hate it and tear every aspect of the book apart.
(And I would. Oh I would.)
Even then, the person that would get hurt most in this scenario would be me. The writer will get positive reviews from hundreds of other members of the community. Who will be the one stuck looking unprofessional (even if I was the accurate one)?
That’s right.
Yours truly.
Who will be seen as difficult and will therefore fail miserably to get an agent?
Correct again.
Still, I do want to help others in my community. That is why I started GPF and, since I never stated this clearly before:
I am willing to host blog tours, interview authors, interview characters and will do almost anything for my writing friends as long as it will not rise up from the past and bite me at the worst possible time.
Calculating again, but dead honest.
So, if you do want me to help getting your book out there, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. (My address is in the sidebars.) Just don’t ask me to review your book.
Anyone else ever meet with this dilemma? How did you deal with it? Anyone needing help to get their stories out there? I’m just dying to know.
The Five Year Project 