Contact
To My Readers
When you want to get in touch with me, use the form near the bottom of this page. I’d love to hear anything that you have to say.
Please note that I am a reviewer of books not the author of the books I review. So please don’t contact me in hopes of contacting an author. Otherwise, contact away!
To Authors & Publishers
IMPORTANT: I AM CURRENTLY NOT CONSIDERING REVIEW COPIES AT THIS TIME. I NEED TO COMMIT MYSELF TO DWINDLING DOWN MY CURRENT PILE BEFORE ACCEPTING OTHER TITLES. I AM ALSO CURRENTLY SERVING AS A CYBILS PANELIST IN THE FICTION PICTURE BOOK CATEGORY. I IMAGINE THAT IT WILL BE JANUARY BEFORE I CONSIDER REVIEW COPIES AGAIN. I MAY MAKE THE VERY RARE EXCEPTION AND IF YOU REPRESENT ANY UTAH AUTHORS, I DO WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU. I AM BEGINNING TO TAKE ON ADVERTISING, SO FEEL FREE TO GO THAT ROUTE. I WILL UPDATE THIS PAGE ONCE I’VE CAUGHT MYSELF UP. THANKS!
This blog is a voluntary, part time effort written by a passionate reader who loves to share that passion with others.
I’m more than happy to accept review copies and catalogs from authors and publishers and participate in blog tours and author interviews. Due to the overwhelming amount of requests I receive, I am selective about the titles I accept. I also receive too many requests to respond individually to each one, if you don’t hear back from me, don’t hesitate to contact me with another title down the road.
To get an idea of the types of reviews I write and what you may end up receiving from me check out the posts tagged review copy, blog tour, and author interviews. And of course, book reviews and my archives as a whole.
What do I like to read? As a prolific reader I review every single book I read including picture and board books, middle grade, young adult, fiction, and non-fiction. This blog represents a fair balance between each age representation. To get an idea of my reading tastes visit both my reading list, my library of books I own and again my book reviews archive. I am partial to literary fiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, classics, memoirs, anything that addresses social issues, holocaust books, books set in foreign countries (particularly Africa and Asia), books about polygamy, great young adult and middle grade books, as well as picture books that my two boys ages two and three will enjoy. I am also thinking about beginning to review gardening and photography books as I have a deep interest in those subjects as well (I’m a Master Gardener and hold a degree in Photography).
What do I not like to read? I normally do not read mysteries, romance, chick-lit, thrillers,crime, poetry (with the exception of free verse novels), science-fiction, fantasy (light fantasy I can handle), urban fantasy, paranormal or erotica. I also tend to dislike books that are particularly vulgar, overly sexual, gory, extremely graphic, and have an unusual amount of foul language.
Do I read e-books or self published books? I do not consider e-books or pdf’s for review as I do not have an e-reader (anybody want to solve this problem for me?!). I will consider the rare self-published book.
What can you expect from me? My acceptance of a review copy does not guarantee that I will write a review. But if I finish reading the book I will write a review. If I read more than half of the book but discontinue I usually write a synopsis and then a semi-review to state reasons why I could not continue reading (only two books this year). While I try to only accept review books I think I will like, I can not guarantee that the review will be positive, but it will be fair. I write reviews that I feel are honest and will help my readers select quality books for their reading time. I always include book cover, link to author website, publication details, link to purchase, synopsis, and my personal thoughts about the book in each review. I don’t double post my books I received for review or my author interviews, meaning the review will be on the front page all day. I do NOT post my reviews on any other sites such as Amazon, Library Thing, Good Reads, etc.
When will I review a book? I try to read the review titles that I receive in a timely manner but do to time constraints (come babysit my two little boys and you’ll soon see what I mean!) and other reading interests it sometimes may take a while. My rule of thumb is that if the book is an ARC, I will try to review the book in the month surrounding its release date, in most cases before the book is published. If the book is already published then it may take me anywhere from 2-6 months to read and review it (edited to add: as of September 2009 I am currently 6 months out). The exception to this is blog tours and author interviews in which I will post the review on a specified date.
Compensation. I do not receive any monetary compensation for writing reviews. The money that I currently make from this blog is from Amazon, Indie Bound, Powells, and Barnes and Noble whereby I get a small commission if you click through a product link from my site and make a purchase during that same session. I also run Chitika ads which are shown to only search engine traffic. Currently, this is put right back into the blog with giveaways, postage, hosting fees, and attending book industry related events. I would like to launch some ad space in my sidebars, visit my advertising page for details.
Traffic Details. As of September 2009, this blog receives currently receives 30,000 visitors a month, has surpassed half a million page views, has an Alexa rank of 173,667 (among the highest of book bloggers), a Google Page Rank of 5 and a Technorati authority of 550. I have received over 15,500 comments over a course of 650+ posts. As you can see, I have a very active blog with a very decent amount of traffic in addition to 725+ RSS subscribers. I am also very active in social networks such as Twitter (3,000+ followers), Facebook, Book Blog Ning and have profiles at Blog Catalog, CafeMom, and YouTube. My blog articles are also syndicated through BlogBurst and picked up by online newspapers like the Chicago Sun Times (which has generated more than 40,000 views on their site). Website Grader grades this blog at 99.99%
Advertising. I am beginning to look into advertising/sponsorship opportunities to maintain this blog and attend book industry events like BookExpo America, where I was on a book blogging panel last year. Visit my advertising page, if you’d like to work something out.
Please use the form below to contact me.
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Hey you! Yes. You! I've noticed that you've stopped by to visit a few times! But I don't know who you are. Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself. Don't be scared. I try not to bite. I know you're a lurker but I'd love to hear your thoughts about what's been bringing you here. And if you haven't done so already, don't forget to never miss a post by subscribing to my feed or receiving updates by email. Thanks for visiting!
