Thursday Thoughts: Amazon, Reviews and Attachments, Back to Blogging

This is a new feature that will be looking at blogging, books, and anything of any relevance to the YA Blogosphere in short form. It's meant to start a discussion by offering quick thoughts from Mari and P.E. on a variety of topics. 

Amazon is Evil?

by P.E.

I assume everyone has heard of the Hachette/Amazon dispute, and the letter that was sent out, and I suppose everyone has formed their own opinion. I can't really comment on what's happening between Hachette and Amazon because frankly, I don't know enough. However, I'm more inclined to want to limit the power Amazon has. That's because Amazon is building a monopoly. They are a retailer and they're trying to become the seller of ebooks. And as a Canadian already screwed because our phone/tv/internet companies overcharge because there's only a few options, I don't think it's safe for the book industry to have Amazon dominate them so much. They'll build a monopoly, there will be little viable competition, and then there will be little incentive to have good prices or continue to progress. I guess I want to see some alternatives to Amazon, and am hoping for good things from places like Smashwords. 

The Invisible Threads Attached: Reviewers POV

by Mari

It's always horrible when we come to dislike a book. But it's worse in the case of books that have been sent to us for review. We're pumped because we obviously thought it was going to be good and the publisher and authors are also pumped because they can share what they love with us and through us, also get some attention. Then everything goes wrong and out comes the negative review. We as reviewers feel bad and I know some sites have even adopted a positive review only policy like I Eat Words. Here at The Sirenic Codex we like to share our negative reviews because we like to read them. I always go through a positive and negative review to decide if I want to read a certain book. However, this doesn't help the sense of guilt. I've recently started using Net Galley more because I want to build my profile and as a result I'm even more concerned when I rate a book negatively because in that case, it's not just my readers who are seeing my review but also publishers.

Back to Business

By P.E.

So I took one week off the blog when I visited my aunt's house, and now getting back into blogging is hard. There are posts that need to be written (especially some discussion posts that just aren't happening), books to be read, comments to make, social media, emails to respond to, and gosh you don't realize how much work blogging is until you're away for a bit and then get back to it. It's hard because I'm so overwhelmed with getting back into the rhythm I was before, and it's hard to get back there because there's so much that needs to be done, for the blog and for school. Due to the upcoming commencement of university, I feel this need to make sure a lot of TSC posts are prepped and ready so that I don't have to worry as I'm figuring school and residence out. And I feel all this stress even with a co-blogger. *sigh*