Thursday, July 7, 2011

Broadsheets and Blogging



Simon Savidge wrote a post earlier this week in response to an article in the bookseller by Scott Pack about missed opportunities regarding the books pages in newspapers and blogs. Pack thinks it would be fun and useful to sometimes turn over actual news print to bloggers suggesting that both sales and web traffic would increase. He also thinks it won’t happen, not least because you have to ask what journalist is going to want to hand over any part of their turf to an amateur competitor?

I would probably have forgotten about the whole debate if it hadn’t been for a ‘Decanter’ magazine article about power in the wine trade. In a list of 50 of the world’s most influential names in wine number 16 is the amateur wine blogger. ‘Decanter’ has it about right when they talk about “a world of rapidly evolving views and insights which are increasingly becoming a key reference point - and forum – with which winemakers and producers can engage”. Substitute writers and publishers for winemakers and producers – it’s all the same.

The thing about the books pages in the weekend papers is that whilst they’re presumably still there I’m not reading them anymore. This is partly an economy thing, but it’s also a question of representation. It’s right and proper that the majority of reviews should concern themselves with contemporary writing but I’m more interested in classics or rediscovered curiosities and there’s no shortage of educated, informed, and enthusiastic write ups of the books I might want to read but to find them I go straight to the bloggers who share my love of a certain type of book.

An ever increasing number of bloggers suggest I’m part of a very big crowd and the thing that I suspect is becoming increasingly clear is that though the individual number of readers each blog has may be small (a busy blog being one that has a couple of thousand hits a day) the impact they have on their readers is disproportionate. Other bloggers make me spend money. Publishers know it which is why (I assume) they are generally so willing to throw a few books our way. Some bookshops are beginning to realise it, and plenty of writers are in no doubt whatsoever.

Which leads to another thing that fascinates me about the book bloggers I know – we most of us do it for free, as a hobby it takes up a huge amount of time and it’s rewarding in all sorts of ways (but not in cash) and yet somebody somewhere is making something out of what we do for fun, and all the time we do it we’re sidelining the people who make some sort of a living from more traditional reviews. I suspect that without the internet and the passionate partisanship of a hardcore of readers, publishers like Persephone would be somewhat less successful than they have been, it’s how they’ve separated me from the better part of £500, another few dozen like me and that’s a noticeable impact on a balance sheet.

I don’t know if this has been a missed opportunity or not, but I’m quite sure that things are going to get a lot more interesting.

13 comments:

  1. I agree with you. I skim the books pages of the weekend papers for work but I read fewer new books, especially fiction, & more books I read about on blogs. The books I review on my blog may be new but they're more likely to be reprints of older titles. Apart from crime fiction, a few contemporary authors & non-fiction, & I get my recommendations from specialist magazines & journals, blogs & the internet.Still, someone must be reading the newspaper reviews or they wouldn't bother printing them!

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  2. I get guardian on saturday but most time have read the translation books reviewed so no point really ,I blog as a hobby ,happy for any books I get but would still blog with out them ,all the best stu

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  3. Lyn, if I read more new books it would probably be the case that I read more in the papers, as it is it's been blogs like yours that have given me the most information recently about upcoming books I want to read

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  4. Stu, this is the thing, I'd rather turn to yo for information on books in translation because I know it's your thing, and because I can ask you questions and expect an answer. It works for me!

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  5. Excellent post. If the broadsheets reviewed the kind of books I like to read I would take more of them, but while they all review novels by the same handful of writers who do not particulary interest me - Martin Amis, Jonathan Franzen etc etc I don't bother. I suppose its driven by market forces.

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  6. Vintage Reading, I suspect a collision of market forces and an old boys (and girls) network which is all fine, but is in it's own way just as small a niche as any blogger occupies. What I think is exciting is seeing how much broader our actual reading habits are compared to what gets press attention. The flood of rediscovered neglected classics is also a market force and one that must have been cosumer led as well.

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  7. A couple of thousand hits a day would be nice! I don't get half that. People never seem to talk about how many hits they get - it seems poor etiquette, somehow.

    Thanks for introducing a new angle to this debate - because I have got rather sick of the original debate - why DO we give up so much time to blogging??

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  8. Simon, I give up time for blogging because it's cheap and because it makes a good counterpoint to work. Asking someone's stats - I guess it's like a combination of asking someone's age and weight.

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  9. Only just got to this post as I've been on hols, it made fascinating reading. Apart from reading which is something I've always done, blogging has become the best hobby I've had.

    From the volume of freebie books now offered by publishers, they recognise the value of engaging bloggers, and who doesn't check the reviews on Amazon either ...

    Although I do read some print reviews - it's the occasional feature articles on writers and their work, or broader literary topics that are more interesting than the reviews themselves.

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  10. I do not care if you get one hit per day or a million. If what you say is worth my time to read it why do I care if a thoudnd other people have the same desire as me to read your piece or not?

    I still greatly enjoy reading book reviews in newspapers. I'm as keen as reading views on something newly published yesterday as someone's views on The Decameron.

    I'm 51, male and weigh 54 kg so that saves you the embarassment of asking!

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  11. Gaskella, I don't check the Amazon reviews ...

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  12. Dark Puss, I would be lying if I said I don't care if anyone reads what I blog about or not, if I didn't want an audience I would keep a notebook. When I started I hoped that a few bookish friends and my mum and dad would read it, they do and I'm happy with that. I like that other people read it too, I've made new friends, come across different ideas - all that kind of thing.

    I get a couple of hundred hits a day, many of them are people looking for pictures of the classic orders of columns which I can't take much credit for. I blog for fun but am aware of, and admire, a couple of bloggers who have turned into a business or what is essentially a brand even if that isn't something for me.

    I've worked in retail for a long time, and stats like sales figures fascinate me, as does the way that social networking and the like is changing the way we spend, I can't help myself, so from my point of view it does matter who's reading what and where and why.

    As for me one person sparing the time to read what I've got to say (and joy of joys, comment) is enough to encourage me to keep on telling the world about my holidays and so on. And I wish I only weighed 54 kilos.

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  13. sharing knowledge with others
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylRA41TZ9zU

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