the recap of the discussion on giveaways:
I wrote a post on giveaways in the book blog world a couple of days back, I didn't know the stir that it would cause to bring up giveaways. It really seems many of you have been thinking about it as well. From all of your comments, I have summarized what you said below:
Giveaways are good, everyone seems to like them. It is the book/ blog promotion that is grating on readers nerves. Things such as: post about this giveaway and get more entires. Folks seem to be getting annoyed at going through their Google reader finding nothing but "enter this giveaway" posts, which are starting to be the majority of the posts these days.
It also seems to be a common thread that you who do host giveaways, would rather actually give away the books to your readers than visitors that only come via someone else's blog, or through some website mentioning your giveaway.
Still it seems that most of us are all for the goods, you want to enter the giveaways that are something you would want, this is obvious since 65% of you voted that you enjoy giveaways, and 26% that you are getting annoyed with them. I think the irritation is due to the constant promotion and cross promotion of new authors and new books. Many of you good 'ol time bloggers (meaning those of you that have been around for even most of the year) have noted a crazy increase in these author and publicist promoted giveaways. And I agree with you on your comments that the older books, the classics, even books that are several years old are not being talked about because we are all getting so many new books to read, and we can hardly keep up with those.
What changes can we make to have this change now? Well, I know every blogger is their own boss, no one owns you and I am not trying to tell anyone how to run their blog. BUT if you are starting to feel a little bogged down yourself with giveaways, consider what you can do to change it.
These are the PERSONAL changes that I am going to make:
- I am no longer going to include the line: post about this giveaway on your blog for more entries, therefore I will give the book away amongst my readers for the most part.
- I will only host one giveaway at a time, and once I mention it I am not going to continuously promote it at the end of every blog post. I know this will make for fewer entries, but I don't like the advertising aspect that it brings to my blog when I do.
- I am going to cut my giveaway time down. I am not sure to what. I was thinking of giving my readers 24 hours to comment on the giveaway and then choose a winner. I actually really like the giveaways that I have seen hosted at times that go directly to the first commenter.
-In order to add some older books, and classics I am going commit to reading one book off my shelves every month. That is to start out. I am also going to tell authors and publishers from now on (thank you J. Kaye!!) that I will try their book, but I do not guarantee a reivew. I will put forth an honest attempt to read it, but if the book is not something that I desire to read after reading 50 pages into it, I will not finish or review it.
I am doing that because right now I feel I have the commitment to read every page, of the books people send me. I feel they have sent me the book, and it is almost like a payment for me reading it. I think I really need to take this into my hands and switch it up, buy informing them from the start that if it is not to my interest I will not guarantee that I will complete it. This will also do away with me reading books that I don't like, just to said that I read it. That really is the only aspect of book blogging that I do not enjoy. I don't want to feel that I am in a college literature class again.
Thank you all so much for your enthusiasm on this topic. Let me know if you have any further suggestions to maximize the fun aspect of giveaways, and reduce the toll that it is taking on our little book bloggy world. Oh, and if you have any changes you have made or are going to make yourself that you want to share...be sure and share them!!! Let's keep talking about this peeps! You are so amazing 
What do you think? What changes are you making? Do you agree, disagree....?
too many giveaways? share your thoughts!
hey peeps! I am not sure about you, but for some reason I am wondering if all the giveaways going around is actually putting a damper on the blogger community. Are you tired of giveaways? Are you all for them? I have recently had a feeling that more people are not entering giveaways, and that there was too much all at the same time. What are your feelings on giveaways? Be honest.
It just seems they are everywhere, and I am trying to figure out my feelings on them as well.
I just got done posting a poll in my sidebar about giveaways, please let me know your feelings
Here are the options in the poll, please vote on my sidebar though!!
Share your current feelings about Giveaways:
*Love them! You enter them all.
*Enjoy them. You enter the ones you like.
*Don't care. You don't really pay any attention.
*Starting to get annoying. You used to like them.
*Hate them. You never enter giveaways.
I am very curious to see where everyone is at with this. Does having so many giveaways make us book bloggers seem cheap? As if we are trying to purchase our readers and loyalty by giving them stuff rather than just attracting them for our reviews and posts? I am feeling a little overload, but I currently have a giveaway going on of my own...I am going back and forth on this one and would love to hear your thoughts!!!
Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst Giveaway!
"Parkhurst treats the game show as an opportunity for the contestants to decide, as the producer asks of them, "What have you found?" The answer for readers: heart and wit to spare." —Publisher's Weekly
Summary by the publisher:
A suburban mom, her troubled daughter, divorced brothers, former child stars, born-again Christians, and some young millionaires have all been selected to compete on LOST AND FOUND, a daring new reality show. In pairs of two, they will race across the world to compete for a million-dollar prize.The only question is not only who will capture the big jackpot, but at what price.
Carolyn Parkhurst is also the author of the bestseller The Dogs of Babel.
"[A] deeply affecting page-turner.... Parkhurst endows each [character] with complexity and pathos, even when she doesn't approve of the choices they make. What emerges is less a satire than a straightforward character study—one that we're reluctant to put down even after the last contestant crosses the finish line." —Rebecca Marx, Elle Magazine
Click on this open book widget to take you inside of Lost and Found:
Giveaway Details:
Thanks to Hachette Book Group (and publicist Valerie Russo), I can host this book giveaway!! We will start out with one book to giveaway, and for Each 10 entries I will add in an extra copy of the book, up to a total of 5 books.
Residents of the US and Canada only, sorry we cannot mail to PO Boxes.
Enter by the 6th of November, I will pick the winners on Friday the 7th!!!
To enter the giveaway for Lost and Found:
1.) Comment on this post, include why you would like to read it, what interests you about it, or anything else besides, "enter me please"
2.) For an extra two entries post about it on your blog, and let me know that you did.
The 19th Wife GIVEAWAY BBAW
okie-dokie book reading peeps! How fun has BBAW been so far??? Well, I have had a blast entering all types of giveaways, and adding tons more of you to my reader, so thrilling to find amazing new blogs that I have never seen before, yay!
On to the giveaway. In honour of BBAW I am doing another giveaway!!!
Somehow I ended up with two of these, and I only can read one...well I could read both, but how silly is that!!?!? Anyway, so one will be sent out to one lucky commenter.
I haven't read it yet, but it seems to be getting rave reviews:
the 19th Wife on Amazon
the 19th Wife at Presenting Leonore
How to enter:
1.) leave a comment on below telling me one book from my list that you have read, or would like to read.
2.) for TWO extra entries post about this giveaway on your blog and let me know!
You will have until the 22nd to get your entries in!!!!
Happy commenting to you all!!
ps make sure your check out (and enter) my other giveaway too!!!
sweet MATRIMONY, the giveaway!!!
To enter the drawing:
1.) Comment on this post for one entry
2.) Post about it on your blog for an additional two entries.
The super-lucky-ducky winner will be chosen on the 22nd!!!
For more information on the book you can head over to Joshua Henkin's website, or you can go to amazon of indie bound for ratings and to purchase the book.
Here is what your fellow book bloggers had to say about Matrimony:
Rebecca of The Book Lady's Blog
Chartroose of Bloody Hell, It's a Book Barrage!
Jennifer of The Literate Housewife
Trish of Hey lady! Whatcha readin'?
Gautami of My Own Little Reading Room
Bookfool of Bookfoolery and Babble
Mrs. S of 50 Book Challenge
Lisa of Books on the Brain
Heather J. of Age 30 - A Year of Books
Gayle of Everyday I Write the Book Blog
Becca of The Inside Cover
Dewey of Hidden Side of a Leaf
Tanabata of In Spring it is the Dawn
Trish of Trish's Reading Nook
Amy of My Friend Amy
Julie of Booking Mama
Bethany of B&b Ex Libris
WOW! (I mean, who hasn't read it!?!?!) See....you really need to see what this book is all about!!!
PS Isn't that the best sweater ever !? (I love sweaters)
Orbis Terrarum Challengers: get ready!
(form of book display at Cairo International Book Fair)
Prepare yourself for another OT giveaway!! Put your links up on the link page
We are at 147 books we have read together and that is INCREDIBLE peoples!
So get your links up and for every link to a review you will have an entry. You have two days to get more links up, and I will select a winner on Saturday. Yeah, I don't know what the prize will be yet. For sure It will be a couple of good reads. I'll let you know by the end of the day.
giveaway results for: BELONGING!
Who won BELONGING?
Well...Trish from Trish's Reading Nook did!!
Congrats girl! I really hope you enjoy this book of poetry
BELONGING: Interview, Exerpt and GIVEAWAY!!!
Interview Questions for Niloufar Talebi, author of BELONGING and founder of The Translation Project:
b:What was the hardest part about birthing BELONGING? When did your dream for this book begin?
b:Do you think that poets and writers have a different story to tell than what the news media would cover on the nation of Iran? What do you notice as the largest difference?
b: Reading about different nations is empowering, it rids us of the fear of the unknown just a little bit each time. Thus the world becomes a smaller place. What is your goal for the American audience with the poetry that you translated in BELONGING and that you perform? Has that dream changed as this project gained momentum?
y enough to have a direct route to this legacy. Spending time with the iconic poet and thinker, Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000), who visited my parents socially in the 1980's, has no doubt shaped my dedication to this legacy. As T.S. Eliot said in 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', tradition is a two-fold concept: what we may think of as 'traditional' was actually in its time art that broke with 'tradition', art that forged a new way ahead. This is what any artist of significance, in any culture achieves to then become part of the 'tradition' of that culture. I hope BELONGING inspires readers to acknowledge and fill in the gap between the great 13th Century Persian poet, Rumi, and contemporary poetry, to examine the poets of the modernist movement in Iranian poetics, which produced a number of other iconic Iranian poets, such as Nima Yushij, Forough Farrokhzad, Ahmad Shamlou, Sohrab Sepehri, Simin Behbahani, and Mehdi Akhavan Saales.
b: Has the movement been silenced (and gone underground) for a while in Iran during the wars and the differences between neighboring nations, or is it due to a lack of translation that I personally have not had much experience with Persian arts?
Niloufar: Iranian literature inside Iran has found ways to survive new (and sometimes brutal) forms of censorship, and has flourished, in fact. The number of women writers has multiplied, for example, contrary to what might be expected. And though there have been both scholarly and literary translations of Iranian works, somehow few works in translation have captured the imagination of the foreign readers, at least in this country. The poet, Forough Farrokhzad is becoming more and more known. Shahrnush Parsipur has two books in English translation. Dick Davis has translated classical Persian poetry, as well as the Pezeshkzad novel, My Uncle Napoleon. Moniru Ravanipur's new book is due to be translated into English. Shahryar Mandanipour's work in English translation is due to be published soon. Ibex Publishers has published love poems by Ahmad Shamlou in English translation. A translation of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi's Missing Soluch was just published in the US. And there must be other projects I don't know of yet. So the works are out there. Remember that in the US, only between 0.3% - 3% of books published annually are works of translation, so we must actively look for them. A great resource for world literature in translation is <www.wordswithoutborders.org>
The poetry in Belonging is stunning, see for yourself:
b: Is there anything else that you would like to talk about, or tell us about?
A Bird Is a Bird
When I draw open this curtain
A TV antenna
And often
A few robins
Decorate my morning.
But it is not a scarcity of windows
That has brought me here;
This rectangular blue
I could have had
Anywhere else.
Birds too
All over the world
Sit in such a way
That their velvety breasts
Are within eye's reach.
Now, red robins of black crows,
What difference does it make?
A bird
Is a bird.
To be honest, I don't remember
What I've come here for.
Surely, must have been an important reason.
One doesn't just
Make a vagabond of oneself
For no reason.
When I remember
I will finish this poem...
(BELONGING, p. 83 Abbas Saffari)
Conversation in the Dark
To my dear Jaleh
Mid nights, when I'm ill and awake
And no light is visible even from a pinhole
And the soft song of your deepest breaths
Accompanies the treble and bass of my heart
To the constant ticking of the clock,
Then I see that even if my thoughts are alone,
My heart, in the hollow of my chest , is not.
Softly, I bend my head over your bedside
And lightly kiss your lashes, joined in sleep.
You feel the weight of the kiss on your eye and smile.
I kiss your cheek warm
And although the clamor of your laughter echoes in my ear,
In the dark waves of night,
Your laughing face does not manifest.
Quietly, I strike a match
To illuminate your face,
But soon, the red sulfuric spark,
Rising and falling upon my two blackened fingers,
Dies in the twist and turn of its dance
And again, dense darkness
Settles in our little bedchamber.
I tell myself: Aside from that brief instant-
The moment I glimpsed youf dear face
-My eye does not have fortune to see.
Like a child fearing darkness,
I pave a path to your embrace
And petrified of something I can't name,
I steal this wisper in your ear:
Kinder than all the world's kindliest creatures!
Oh friend, sweetheart, mother, companion on this voyage!
Scream away so even stone-hearted death
Does not undo us in the promisted moment!
For we both know that in a riotous
World of swarming crowds,
And of all that avails on the endless horizon,
If we have a destiny, it is our loneliness.
And this house, smaller than a boat, sails us-
The distressed-into the sea exile.
But on the alarming horizon of this sea,
Night prevails
And reveals no path in darkness
To tomorrow.
(BELONGING, P. 25 Nader Naderpour)
Don't you love it!?
I have a copy of BELONGING for one lucky commenter thanks to Niloufar Talebi and North Atlantic Books!
Do you want it? Here is how to get it: Comment on this post, telling me what you love about poetry and get one entry, blog about it on your blog and get two more (but make sure you tell me that you did ! You have until the 14th, I'll pick a winner on the 15th.
I honestly really want to keep this copy, as the one I have is an advanced readers co
py, and this one I just got is much nicer than mine, but I won't be greedy, I will give it for someone else to enjoy
do you want to know who WON!?
Dar ! Dar won the copy of Did I Expect Angels? by Kathryn Maughan. Congrats girl click on the "email me" button and send me your contact info.
Thanks to all of you who commented and posted about this giveaway!!! You are all incredible.
PS My hubby is away on a business trip until Thursday, I have some books that I need to get sent out, but I am going to wait for him to get back before I brave the post office....little kids and long boring post office lines don't go well together. (So I have Ramya's book that I will send out then, and Julie's and now Dar's).
doomsday + 2 GIVEAWAYS!
One of my favorite bookstores burned down last weekend, and while I only got to visit there while I was on vacation, it made me stop and think.
What would you do if, all of a sudden, your favorite source of books was unavailable?
Whether it’s a local book shop, your town library, or an internet shop … what would you do if, suddenly, they were out of business? Devastatingly, and with no warning? Where would you go for books instead? What would you do? If it was a local business you would try to help out the owners? Would you just calmly start buying from some other store? Visit the library in the next town instead? Would it be devastating? Or just a blip in your reading habit?
oh, what would I do? I would read the books that I have, I probably have enough to keep my busy for some time...years and years. So, maybe that would be what I would do. I read books mainly from the lib, and ones that I find at goodwill or the local arc (used store) or the Book Bin. I head up to Powell's every once in a while....but they are too expensive when I am used to getting bargains. I only go there if I want an outing, and really want a specific book.
So, what would I do....I guess find another source or read what I have!!! I really should read what I have anyway....
Oh, and I am having a GIVEAWAY!!!!! Make sure you comment here(Did I Expect Angels?) and here (The Heartbreak Diet) to enter, plus blog about it and you'll get two more entries!!!
