First, if you haven't kept up on the Sherman Alexie interview over at Ed's then you must go read the comments. There is a discussion going on there about e-books that is amazing and says a lot of things that I have not read anywhere else about the kindle. I think the best part is where one side argues that the kindle is affordable and another side states not if you are poor. This was Alexie's argument and now that he is meeting with amazon it will be interesting to hear what he says on the subject next.

Now, the blow up that was my post yesterday on the BEA book bloggers panel. There is a lot of discussion in the comments and one main theme that came from that (and from the twitter posts I've seen that quite frankly don't seem to be too complimentary about yours truly) is that the bloggers on that panel were hobbyists and not professionals and those who have argued some of the points they made are professionals and thus not coming from the same place as them.

I am apparently one of those professionals.

First, I think people need to be reminded of discussions about professional status that have taken place in the lit blogosphere in the past. (And to clarify - "lit blogosphere" is the only term I've ever seen used for the section of the blogosphere that deals with books and book reviewing/recommending/discussing/etc. That is where the term lit bloggers came from - if you blogged on books in any capacity you are/were a lit blogger and that's all there is to it.) First there was the huge NBCC dust up where members of the NBCC came out against bloggers as unprofessional and thus not worthy book critics - in fact at one point a post at the NBCC blog compared blogs to maggots. Yes, it got that ugly.

Then there was the n+1 debacle wherein a highbrow (?) literary magazine basically said that lit blogs were the end of civilization. There was some posting and commenting all over the place on that one, as you can imagine. And there was also the Horn Book discussion in the kidlitosphere wherein it was suggested that kidlit bloggers might be more likely to give positive reviews to authors who comment on their blogs (there was also discussion of coziness and bribing with cookies). That one was sheer craziness. (There was also Richard Ford suggesting we all blogged from basements in Terre Haute and the Library Journal columnist who suggested we were crazy cat people.)

These are only five past blogsphere discussions about bloggers and professionalism that come immediately to mind for me - I'm sure there are many more out there as well. I point them out so that readers can understand why the notion of a panel of book bloggers at the BEA making statements about authors needing to comment on blogs that review their books and publishers who should tweet about them is a concern - a big concern. It does not matter if you call yourself a hobbyist, if you accept books from a publisher and you review them then I'm sorry - you are as tied to the industry as anyone else.

Anyone.

You accepted free books from publishers and you wrote a review (good, bad or otherwise you gave them publicity). So this notion that as hobbyists (the term comes from comments to my earlier posts) you are somehow not as responsible or do not need to be professional or do not have the same obligations as those who call themselves lit bloggers (which is just the older term for what you are doing) is silly. When you throw in that the panelists appeared at BEA (and let's not kid ourselves - this is a serious gathering) under this guise:

Book Bloggers -- Today's Buzz Builders

Book bloggers, via their blogs, Twitter, GoodReads, Facebook, and more, are leading the way in creating buzz for books, offering venues for authors to connect directly with their fans and are reviewing more books than ever in a world where traditional book review coverage is changing. Six top book bloggers, along with Harper Collins' Jennifer Hart (and BookClubGirl blogger) will discuss how booksellers, publishers and bloggers can combine forces to bring readers and authors together.

well, then, the whole hobbyist vs professional distinction gets a lot murkier. If you're just a hobbyist then what are doing sitting on a panel at an industry conference referring to you as a "top book blogger" and talking about "leading the way"? You can't have it both ways - if you are going to sit up there and speak for a larger group then you have to accept that you are representative and further, that others are going to have something to say about it.

And when you consider that panelists at an industry conference, who were invited by a publisher are suggesting those who disagree with some of their conclusions are the real industry insiders - well - that just seems hard to believe.

Look, I honestly don't want this to turn into a big flame war and I know that can easily happen. (It's the internet after all.) But the misconception that lit bloggers are professional in terms of earning money from their blogs, that they have degrees in something lit bloggish (I have no idea what this is), that they work for publishers or on and on are just wrong. I do not know a single lit blogger who makes a living from their blog - not one. I know writers who are lit bloggers, both novelists and freelancers. I know a lot of folks who blog and also review titles in print. But nobody - NOBODY - makes a living from blogging. It just doesn't happen. I claim a level of professionalism (and so do several others) not because of money but because of standards. As Ed mentioned in the comments yesterday many who have been around awhile have accepted a certain level of journalistic standards for the good of our own blogs and our larger community. If we want to be taken seriously - by everyone - then you need to approach reviewing seriously. Does that mean that everything I write here is serious? Please. No. Sometimes I write about my dog. But a review at Bookslut (where I don't get paid) or Eclectica Magazine (an internet literary magazine where I don't get paid) or Booklist (the ALA's publication where I get - wait for it - $15 per review!), yes, there I am bloody well serious. Because I know from the past discussions I referenced above that there are plenty of print reviewers who think lit bloggers are insignificant and foolish. We were compared to maggots, people. I seek a level of professionalism because that is what I want in a book review and I think people who read my stuff want that as well.

Honestly when did it become a bad thing to seek to conduct yourself in a professional manner?

Most of the frustration over this panel and what it discussed should perhaps lie with the moderator. Maybe she was not up front with the panelists about what she wanted and maybe the panel was advertised incorrectly to attendees who thought it was more representative of the lit blogosphere as a whole. And maybe it just takes more than five bloggers to answer the question of what the relationship needs to be with publishers. But you can't sit up at this conference, under this guise, and then be frustrated when you receive some negative feedback. And saying that lit bloggers are unfriendly or in the pocket of publishers or whatever else is not going to address the larger issue.

What is a book reviewer on the internet? There's no one answer, obviously. But if you are getting books from publishers then you really ought to be asking yourself a few tough questions about what it means to get something for free and just what your responsibilities for accepting that gift might be. That's something a lot of us addressed years ago - now it's your turn.