“The online book community has changed so much over the years. How do we keep up within our own book-sphere as well as within the community as a whole (i.e., libraries, bookstores, authors, publishers, etc.)?”


Keep up?  What’s that?  I am pretty much entirely out of the loop.  I almost never know what new books are coming out when.  If I do it is because I’ve read something else that I loved of the author’s and now I’m following them on Twitter.  Don’t even ask me about publishers.  I never know.  I have realized lately though that most of the books I’m loving come from Tor. 

My book finding habits have changed.  I used to just go to the library and look at the new release shelves.  I might browse around some favorite authors or genres in the stacks.  I can’t remember when the last time I did that was.

Now I have such a list of books that I want to read that I heard about on Twitter or through other blogs and websites and I put in requests at the library.  I just go as far in as the desk to pick them up.  I never actually go into the stacks any more.

In a way, that’s sad.  There isn’t the surprise of finding a good book that you didn’t know about.  On the other hand, I’ve found out about a lot of books that I would have never found just browsing the library.  Interlibrary loan is my friend.  I have weird tastes in books. 

I don’t worry about ARCs.  I have a few book tour companies that I’m signed up with and if something sounds amazing I’ll sign up for the tour.  I don’t do it often though.  (Except for this summer.  TLC Book Tours had a summer lineup that looked like they tailored just to get my attention.) I ignore NetGalley for years at a time.  I love backlist books.  There are so many books that I haven’t read yet that I don’t feel the need to be rushing to read new ones.  I don’t need the pressure of having to read a book by a certain date.  I read what I want when I want and I DNF liberally and sometimes not even on purpose.  I just get caught up in another book and forget I was reading something else.  People who put a lot of pressure on themselves don’t stick around these parts for long.
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So how have you changed since you started blogging? Do you try to keep up with anything?