by Magan VernonRelease Date: August 1, 2012
Publisher: Calta Press; 300 pages
There are worse things in life than failing out of college- such as having your parents receive the letter that you’ve been kicked out. Now to appease her parents self-proclaimed sorority princess Libby Gentry is packing up her Prada bag and heading to work for her great aunt’s antique store in tiny Elsbury, Louisiana. She’s pretty sure she can tackle the swamp and deal with her great aunt and tom boy of a little cousin, but what she doesn’t know is if she can handle the local town playboy, Blaine Crabtree.
As Libby's feelings for Blaine grow, so does her need for acceptance and all of the insecurities she has kept inside are coming out. She may have survived the Louisiana swamp, but she may not survive Blaine's reluctance to say the 'L' word. When Blaine finally commits to the three words Libby’s been waiting for, she only hopes they haven’t come too late.
How important do you think book bloggers are for an author?
Book Bloggers are like sprinkles.
Why are they like sprinkles? Because I freaking love sprinkles and I love book bloggers!
Okay, I guess I can elaborate.
Before I was published, I was a book blogger. I received ARCs and titles from some of my favorite authors and I was enormously grateful. Receiving a book from one of my favorite authors was like Christmas morning every single time. As a book blogger I just thought I was SO lucky that an author would choose ME to review their books.
Once I found out that How to Date an Alien was going to be published through DarkSide Publishing, I had to put away my book blogger hat because I thought that it was a conflict of interest, and when I had to start promoting my book I knew the best place to go was to book bloggers.
Here is why authors need book bloggers. You can have plain ice cream, that's fine. Promote your plain old ice cream all that you want, but what makes it special? What makes people take notice of your ice cream? It's the sprinkles.
Sure my book has a great cover and a premise that is original enough, but does that entice the reader? No, it's honestly not always enough. In the digital age of books, we don't always go into our local book store and ask the person at the desk what the best book is, instead we look to book bloggers. Book bloggers are the pretty little sprinkles on top of ice cream that entice us to read the book.
Now some recent people have started to complain about book bloggers, especially ones that give bad reviews. Honestly, a bad review may upset me initially, but I think every book NEEDS an honest review that isn't always glowing, but if it is constructive, then I think it's necessary. Say for instance you want to pick up my young adult title, How to Date an Alien, and you read a bad review that says they were upset about the fact the book was so heavy on the romance. This could be something that could sway you from buying the book if you weren't into romance, but it's also something that could make you buy the book. "Hey maybe I like heavy romance, I'm in!" Same for sprinkle, some people just don't like chocolate sprinkles. If you get a warning that they are on the ice cream you may not take them, but if like chocolate then dive on.
Book Bloggers are the best sprinkles, though. They are the ones that even if they don't like a book, they'll give a constructive review and can actually even help the author improve future books. **mild spoiler ahead** One reviewer said they were disappointed in Gavin and Riley's role in How to Date an Alien. Instead of crying about it, it completely changed how I wrote Alien Book 3 and made it a better novel and even gave them a pretty big role **end mild spoiler**
So in conclusion, people may complain about book bloggers and bad reviews and people may complain about chocolate sprinkles. No buddy is ever going to be happy with anything, but without my book bloggers and my sprinkles, I don't think any of my books would be possible.
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