Co-blogger David (immediately below) raises the question of why bloggers don’t get many review copies of books. In part some publishing houses may think of blogs and the Internet as threats, rightly or wrongly. They prefer not to think about us, and they prefer not to have to tell their bosses: “These are interesting outlets, we should invest resources in courting them.” Just think how long it took the major music companies to get serious about on-line music.
A second issue concerns readers. Do blogs really help book sales? I suspect many of our readers look at blogs in lieu of reading books. We bloggers are a kind of guilty pleasure. We offer the aura of being intellectual, yet in bite-size bits. And if you read about a book on a blog, you may think you don’t need to read the book. If I think about myself, I now read more blogs and (slightly) fewer books as a result. You can tell all the stories you want about complementary uses of books and blogs, but at some margins differing activities are likely to be substitutes.
The leading blogs don’t focus on books per se; nor do they offer traditional book reviews. And of course you can’t link to (most) books the way you can to (some) newspapers and magazines. The Clarke book, the Woodward book and other “political” books get huge play in the blogosphere. They provide a kind of common language for our debates about the issues. But readers care about the issues and personalities most of all. I’ll admit that I have used blogs as a substitute for reading (and buying) these books. I’ve also noticed how frequently neophyte bloggers will simply mention a new book as “interesting” and think they have given their audiences something. In reality most readers don’t find this of value. They would like to learn about the substance of the book. So blogs definitely make books more famous and more important. I am less sure how much they boost book sales.
I remain optimistic about the future of the book. And if major presses send me review copies, there is a good chance I will cite them in my blog posts. But I am not expecting a flood to start arriving in the mail.
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