Okay, a contributor to Emerald City has a long entry up today about her disappointment over the site discontinuing (I totally understand) but then she goes into an explanation about how costly and difficult it can be to run a "hobby" site. How the cost for hosting is extensive, how publicists may hound you, authors may hound you, even editors might hound you - the whole thing becomes more trouble than it is worth.

I just don't get this.

First, you can run a site from blogger if you just want to do it yourself and that is free. Is it exciting to look at? No, but Jenny D is doing just fine over there and everybody and their third cousin reads her, so I think it does the job. Basically if you want to do it cheap, then you can do it cheap.

But if you want to be more professional (like Emerald City) then yes, there will be some cost both in dollars and time. What I don't get is how anyone who decides to do this could be surprised by the amount of time it requires. I have read elsewhere how doing it for free isn't worth it, or the blogger never thought it would get so hard, etc. But really - you are electing to put out a magazine, and anyone in publishing knows that is time consuming. Just because it's on the web doesn't make it easy. I knew this from my college newspaper experience - you have to write and edit and do layout and everything else.

It's publishing people, not a holiday.

What I'm really confused by though is that I have never, not once, had anyone harrass me over a review (or not doing a review). In the past two years that I've been reviewing for Bookslut and Eclectica (and now Voices) I've had about a dozen PR folks from various publishers send follow-up emails to ask if I got something and inquire about a review. I always tell the same thing (if I got the book): "Yes, I received the book and I will be in touch if/when the review is up. Thanks so much for thinking of me, Best - Colleen".

That's it - and no one has ever gotten mad.

Now maybe part of the easy time I've had is because I only write reviews for books I'll recommend. I don't write bad reviews because I'm not interested in reading books I don't like. If I'm a few chapters in and not enjoying it, then I don't finish it. There are too many books I want to read waiting in the wings - why waste my time over a book I don't like? And even more - why waste my time writing about it? So maybe that's why no one gets mad at me and that's fine. I don't think I'm sacrificing any principles here by refusing to do bad reviews and maybe my life is a lot easier because of it.

Either way, I see no reason to stop reviewing.

I couldn't help but notice that in the comments to Juliet's entry there was a bit of a "fight" between the Emerald City principles and someone else. I can see how it would be exhausting if this sort of thing is a part of your daily life. Color me happy that it doesn't happen at Bookslut or Eclectica or Voices - or here at Chasing Ray. I'm just telling the world about some cool books I like. It doesn't have to be a hard thing to do and really - it shouldn't be.