Happy Sunday all you absolutely beautiful book nerds. Today’s Stop & Chat is a top I’ve been sitting on for a while because I wasn’t sure how it would be received. Then I remembered that I don’t really give a damn and this is my space so I’m going to talk about what I want to talk about.
(FYI I may have made this decision after two glasses of wine and a girls night O_o)
Any who! Today’s topic is….well the title sort of speaks for itself doesn’t it? Blogging is not a competition! It is not something we do for awards or recognition or to have some silly title. Or it it?
Advance Reader Copies. Exclusive author interviews. Exclusive cover reveals. Book Expo America Press Status. Are these not trophies? Are these not ways we are validated for our countless hours of hard work? Hours spent reading (ok that’s not “work” but still!). Hours spent standing in signing lines. Hours spent crafting reviews that are informative but not spoilery. Hours of researching new releases/series possibilities. Hours of creating graphics. Hours of managing twitter/instagram/facebook/youtube/snapchat/whatever else you use. Don’t we spend all this time and energy so publishers like us? For publishers to pick us when they want to properly promote an awesome book? And what exactly is wrong with this? What is wrong for wanting a pat on the back for a job well done? Or a cookie for doing so well on something?
You see…I think it’s human nature to want to be rewarded for working hard. But when does that cross the line into competing with other bloggers? I see so many people trying to “one up” each other and I think a lot of it occurs on a subliminal level. If you ask any blogger WHY they blog, the default pageant answer is always “because I love it and it makes me happy!”. No one ever says “because I love getting books before the rest of the population and bragging about all the things I get to do with authors or publishers”. No one says this! Yet….a lot of people imply it. I’m not calling anyone out or pointing fingers. Believe me that’s not what this discussion is about! What I’m doing is asking. Is blogging a contest? Is it something we do because we like being known in the publishing industry? Because we want to be the go to to promote things? Because we want to be able to say “I got this/did this/accomplished this, first!”? Yes it makes us happy to share our love of books with other book nerds and I’m sure that makes up a good 85%-93% reason for WHY we blog, but; deep down do we really look at it as a contest? As a means to prove something to the book community?
Leave your thoughts below! But remember, this is a SAFE PLACE. Respect the opinions of others and be confident that your opinion will be respected.
This is such a great post! I try my best not to feel like I am in competition with other bloggers, but it’s hard! I feel so jealous when others get an ARC that I was rejected for. And of course, I get jealous when I look at the followers of other blogs. Ugh.
The “competition” aspect of blogging – I know we all try to deny that there is one but it’s kind of hard to deny – is something that I have always struggled with, and it took me YEARS to get to this point where I basically just post whatever and whenever. Before, I would get very upset when I don’t get pageviews, comments, email responses, but now, I just try to appreciate what I DO get. At the end of the day, blogging is about sharing our love of books with each other, and I just try to focus on that.
Thanks for the insightful post, Octavia! 🙂
I approached this topic in a discussion post a bit ago and I found that many folks are really hesitant to say that they do feel competitive. I sort of do! Not in a bad way but in a “These people are awesome and I want to push myself further” way. I love seeing the creativity, inspiration and general amazingness of the community. I feel that we are a really talented bunch and I feel that with any creative thing we help to inspire each other to reach further and accomplish more. I think, if I wasn’t part of the community I might have gotten stale much earlier. I think a HEALTHY does of competition can be a great thing. It gets bad if people take it to extremes but I’ve been super lucky (or naïve) and haven’t seen a ton of it in the community.
I’ll say it – I think it’s cool that as bloggers we get to read ARCs before other people! But I also feel as though there are enough ARCs to go around and I don’t ever feel as though I’m competing with other bloggers to get ARCs. It’s also not the main reason I blog – I didn’t even know ARCs were a thing when I started blogging – and I think if it ever became the main reason I blogged, blogging would start to feel like work instead of fun for me and I’d quit. I’ve had a really great experience in the blogging community and I don’t feel as though anyone I interact with treats it as a competition or is less than friendly and that’s what keeps me going.
I was also reading Kristen’s comment and I agree with her that other blogger’s successes can be motivational. When I read a post on a great topic and wish I’d thought of it, it inspires me to do more brainstorming and coming up with new ideas for posts other than just your standard review post.
I don’t feel too competitive yet, for me, it’s more along the lines of, “geez I’ve been doing this for awhile, but I don’t really have much to show for it” with page views, comments, followers etc. I started book blogging on tumblr before branching off onto wordpress and there are tons of people on tumblr who have been blogging for less time, but have twice (or thrice) as much followers. That always gets me down, but then I remember there’s a reason for that.
I don’t want to get too put out about it because I don’t want blogging to feel like a chore.