Last week, Parajunkee’s View polled over 200 Book Bloggers and asked them some serious questions. Questions that might be personal to each blog, or sometimes self-evident. The answers that were received were surprising. You might be interested to see what your other Book Bloggers feel about touchy subjects, or their blogs in general. Today’s Book Blogging 101 will be all the results.
I apologize the Plugin Easy Charts is having difficulties.
Handling Reviews, Authors & Posts
Book Bloggers Review DNFs?
Another topic of contention with Book Bloggers. To review a DNF or not to review a DNF. And like all touchy subjects this one again seems to be about 50/50 with the poll lying a little more to 51/49% split in favor of No DNFs.
What percentage of bloggers do you think only write positive reviews?
Again a big surprise with only 7% saying they only do positive reviews. Their main reason stated (6 out of 7) was that if they didn’t like the book, they don’t review it.
Only one person claimed they know what they like before they read it.
Snark
Snarky reviews can also be a topic of contention with book bloggers, some stating that a bit of snark can go a long way in insulting the author and the best way to do a review is to keep it professional. Whereas, there are some readers that want the professional reviews left to the “professional reviewers” and they want the snark. The majority of bloggers polled stated that they didn’t consider themselves snarky — but 36% of them did consider themselves snarky.
Author Call-Outs
With the recent drama induced scandals, there has been a few posts with the main goal of pointing out Bad Author Behavior. The fact that posts like this draw uber views, makes me want to know, how many bloggers will call an author out in regards to their badly written works, or their inappropriate behavior? About 27% of bloggers said they would, the rest would just leave the drama with their mama.
Have you ever NOT read a book because of an author’s behavior?
I wanted to know this, to see if these drama events actually impact sales. It would seem that they do, 52% of book bloggers polled said they wouldn’t read a book if the author acted inappropriately.
Have you ever read a book because of a NEGATIVE review?
This was posed because I know we say it all the time…even negative reviews sell books. But is it true? Or something book bloggers spin to make author feel good about their 1 star review they just received. Obviously were are stating fact, because a whopping majority of 76% said they have read a book because of a negative review they read.
Did you know you would not like a book before you read it, but read it anyway?
Some people consider this bad blogger behavior, stating that some bloggers want to write a negative review, so they’ll grab a book they pretty much know they won’t like. Intentions of course, probably vary from reader to reader, but a majority of book bloggers, 66% said they have read a book they knew they wouldn’t like.
Ever wanted to know the average amount of books, most book bloggers receive weekly?
The numbers might shock you, considering the majority answered “0″. I specifically asked that they did not include NetGalley or Edelwiess downloads.
Then out of all those books, how many of them are ARCs? I took the people that claimed “0″ on the last question out, which left about 140 book bloggers that did get at least 1 or more books a week for review. Again the numbers were surprising:
I personally can not understand a book blogger getting more than 5 books in a week on average. How does a person read that much? I would break under the pressure!! 
What do Book Bloggers Consider their Most Successful post?
I think this differs with each blogger, I have to say, mine is this Book Blogging 101 feature. But let’s take a look:
Other -
Author Interviews/Features, Blog Tours, Book Humor, Discussion Posts, DNF Posts, Discount Book Posts, Opinion Posts, Lists, True Blood
You would think those giveaways would be more popular right? So, I asked, how many enter Giveaways? Only 9% said they didn’t enter giveaways. You would think those posts would be more active. I am happy to see that Reviews are so very popular, though. Speaking of Giveaways also – I asked if people liked or disliked the Rafflecopter widget as far as using it for Giveaways and only 18% said they did not like it.
What conventions are big in the Book Blogging Community?
These are conventions that the book blogger plans on attending.
AAD – Authors After Dark
RWA – Romance Writers of America
Moving Along – Blogger Behaviors, Drama & Social >
Latest posts by Parajunkee (see all)
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Now, I read about 420-430 books last year. About 80 of them were chunky reads- over 500 pages. That works out to about 8 books a week. And even I would struggle- and probably fail- in reading 5 ARC’s a week. Because I don’t read well like that. I’m more of a moody reader and being obligated to read those particular books, on a timetable…I just couldn’t do it.
Holy Mother of Abraham Lincoln.
WOO HOO! ATBF made the list for events. It’s going to be GREAT next month
I was interested in seeing how many ARCs people were getting a week. When I first started out I was getting a ton…like maybe up in that 5+ a week range. Now, I get like NONE. So I wondered if everybody was like that or if publishers just didn’t like me in particular anymore LOL
They don’t like you anymore Autumn — LOL – no my ARCs have dropped WAAAY down, well from the biggeis. S&S, Penguin etc. But, they have increased form mediums and secondary pubs, like Kensington, Gallery etc.
I’ve stopped receiving them from the biggies too, but I think that’s because they are relying more on Net Galley and Edelweiss now. I know for me, e-galleys are so much easier to get to my reviewers, so we’ve actually gone strictly digital. It just makes sense – you can get more out there for half the cost. Especially if they are already being made into ebooks for publication.
I get mostly E-galleys now; and it is great to have that feature.
As far as events, I have been to BEA two years in a row. I realized that it was nearly impossible to make the types of connections I wanted to. I just registered for AAD Savannah. I think I am putting BEA on the Back Burner. And, I might, sometime go to a blog boot camp.
Blog boot camp? I haven’t heard of those yet. I’m signed up for Savannah too!
On the question of how many books per week we get, you didn’t specify solicited or unsolicited. I didn’t take that as “read” or “accepted”. I get people sending me their books almost every day, but I read very few of those, as my backlog of books I really want to read is long enough.
As to reading books we know we’re not going to like, I have done that once or twice when I have accepted a book for review only to later see tons of negative reviews of the book, but still felt like I had to read the book..:)
Sorry to be obtuse, what is a DNF?
You’re not obtuse, Beth. Took me a while to figure this out myself when I first ran across it! DNF = did not finish.
I wouldn’t say I review DNFs, but I do like to do a post when I have enough collected to outline my thoughts on WHY I didn’t finish … my reasons might not be a deterrent for others! As for posting only positive reviews, I read so much during the week that I like to save a lot of the reviews for books I love to post on the blog, and save the more negative reviews for Goodreads. But that all depends on how my scheduling is going for the week.
I would break under the pressure of getting 5+ review books a week, too! I’m just trying to get out of the habit of requesting review books … I like to read what I have and what I gush over in the store. I haven’t been on NetGalley for a few weeks … I find that I then request too many books that I wouldn’t have even looked at in the store, then the books I buy end up piling up.
I’d love to attend some blogging events, but nothing really comes here AND I don’t have the money to spend on traveling to an event. There are just too many things going on in my life!
“52% of book bloggers polled said they wouldn’t read a book if the author acted inappropriately.”
Must.Post.This.Everywhere.
Loved this post, as I’ve always been curious how many review books others receive. And I’ve reviewed a few DNF titles, just to explain why I didn’t finish the book. Great charts too!
thanks for putting this together, all the posts gave me a good feel for where i am. Awesome and thank you.
Thanks for putting this together. It’s great to read this kind of information
51% of bloggers are not posting negative reviews?! Out of all our reviews, I think the negative ones get the most attention at LE. It usually starts some kind of discussion (ie they either agree with us or they want us to give it another shot) and isn’t that what we want? To start discussions on books?
I’m a huge supporter of posting negative reviews. After all, someone out there will like what I don’t.