What's What in the Sunday Salon, July 20, 2014

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

I haven’t quite finished The Leftovers yet, but I’m trying to do so before I go out of town on Thursday–I hate traveling with a physical book that’s more than half-finished. It’s less of an issue with ebooks or audiobooks, since they don’t take up space in the same way, but I’m not sure I’ll have even reached that point in The Interestings by then, given that I’m triple-booking it at the moment. I have one more August release to review for Shelf Awareness, and I’m wavering over whether to bring it with me. On the one hand, I’d rather not travel with obligatory-review books either, but on the other, it’s a short essay collection and those usually do make for good travel reading.

• on audio

I feel like I did the audiobook equivalent of binge-reading with The SIlkworm, which I finished on Friday morning and plan to write up either today or tomorrow. There were some ways in which I didn’t like it quite as well as The Cuckoo’s Calling, but those have nothing to do with the series’ central premise and characters, which are the main reasons I plan to stick with this series.

For years now, I’ve preferred to consume my genre entertainment in TV shows and movies rather than books, but audiobooks seem to be changing that a little, and I’m not sorry that they are.


What I’m watching

Speaking of genre TV, we’ve been on a steady diet of three episodes a night of Supernatural on Netflix this past week, and not getting the least bit tired of it. That said, a few days away from the TV might not be a bad thing…


What I’m writing

I paid tribute to some of my “blogcestors” in a Throwback Thursday post that I updated and repurposed for BlogHer’s Selfiebration question about blogging “family trees,” and I’ve loved the conversations it’s prompted here, on Twitter, and in the Book Bloggers Google+ group. All I have planned for the week ahead here is book reviews, which we all know rarely foster that kind of conversation.


What caught my eye this week

The combination of a busy few days at work and trying to read two to three books at the same time means that my blog-reading has been off-pace this week, so I really don’t have links to share today. I’m also not participating in this weekend’s Mini-Bloggiesta, but I think some of the Mini-Challenges look good and I may tackle them at some point later on. I have a feeling I may be more inspired after next weekend.

• Coral from Book Bunny PR will help us to write five blog post ideas. 
• Bette Lee from Bette Lee Crosby will help us to update SEO on old posts. 
• Wesley from Library Educated brings us a how to on social media etiquette. 
• Katie from Doing Dewey has a challenge about requesting ARCs. 
• Shannon from River City Reading talks about affordable blog design. 
• Alysia from My Little Pocketbooks teaches us all about Thinglink.com. 
• Stormy from Book. Blog. Bake. shares her time management hints . 
• Amanda from Amanda Shofner tells us all about Storify and how it can help us. 
• Stacy from A Novel Life has a tutorial on how to work with blog designers.

What Else is New?

I will be in San Jose for BlogHer’14 this Thursday through Saturday. It’s the tenth-anniversary conference, and my first time attending since 2010 in New York City. I remember a few years when the annual flagship conference sold out months in advance, but this year’s event, even with an attendance cap of 2500, still has some openings if you can make it to the Bay Area with just a few days’ notice. Please let me know if you’re going to be there, because I’d love to see you!

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Shaking the (Blogging) Family Tree--Throwback Thursday #Selfiebration

When I started thinking about Jenna's latest BlogHer #Selfiebration question, "What Does Your Blogging Family Tree Look Like?", I was stumped.

I've been blogging for nearly seven and a half years, and the paths I once shared with many bloggers have diverged, or dead-ended for one reason or another, along the way. Then I realized that one thing about having blogged for so long is that at one time or another, I've probably mentioned some of those who helped form me as a blogger...whether they know it or not.

For Throwback Thursday, I'm shaking the tree with an update of a post from my second Blogiversary, in March 2009.

1. 

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

   Your influencers/"blogcestors"? RT @FireMom: What Does Your Blogging Family Tree Look Like  http://bher.co/ZU1e  #selfiebration#blogher14

   5 DAYS AGO
2. 

   Jenna Hatfield@FireMom

   @florinda_3rs I *LOVE* the term "blogcestors." That's perfect.#selfiebration #BlogHer14

   5 DAYS AGO
3. 

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

   @FireMom Thanks! Twitter character limits force ingenuity & word coinage :-).(And I really need to ponder my "blogcestors"!)#Selfiebration

   5 DAYS AGO

(NOTE: All blog links in the following are those currently used by these bloggers, and may not be the ones they had back in the day.)

"Gosh I didn't even know there was such a thing as Mommy blogs. I am very focused in my blog reading on book blogs I guess."

--comment from Lenore, March 2009 (before she was Lenore), on a link-roundup post

I was never that focused. My interests are pretty wide-ranging, and so is my blog reading. On the Internet, I'm a bit of a wanderer, but I've found "homes" among two communities: the "book bloggers" and the "mom bloggers." I launched this blog two years ago today over seven years ago, and it seems to me that much of my second blogging year was spent building community ties.

I'd known about blogs for a few years before I started one, although I didn't personally know anyone who had one other than my son, who started and stopped a few during his university years. But I was seeing blogs becoming a component of some of the websites I regularly visited, and it made me curious to explore them. I actually started, and then killed, my first blog several months before The 3 R's was born, because I had no idea what I wanted to do with it.

Book reviews were my reason for starting this blog (so I could remember things about what I read, mostly), and at that time, I didn't even realize how many other people were blogging about books. I started looking for them not long after, though, and finding them through activities like the still-active (as of last month) Booking Through Thursday, the long-gone MotherTalk blog tours, and Sassymonkey's book posts on BlogHer. Slowly I discovered the book bloggers, and through them, I found more...and more...and others found me. It was a while before I truly felt like part of the group, though, and as is the case with so many things related to the book-blogging community, it happened at least partly because of Dewey, thanks to her starting the Weekly Geeks activities and giving me the opportunity to host a Bookworms Carnival. The other big catalyst for my sense of belonging to this community was participating in Book Blogger Appreciation Week, during which My Friend Amy became a friend of so many of us.

If there's a "typical" book blogger, it's not me, and that's part of why I haven't always been sure I should call myself a "book blogger" at all. There are bloggers who only post book reviews, reading memes, and book-related news; you can find those things here, but you'll find a lot of other content too, whether you're looking for it or not. What I love about being among the book bloggers is that it turns out that a lot of us aren't "typical" after all, and it's a very welcoming environment. We're giving each other stuff to read--how could that be bad?

On the other hand, one of the first sites where I participated after I began blogging was Work It, Mom!, so the blogging moms weren't a big surprise to me, and I sought them out. Seeing myself in that community was more of a surprise, though, since I was even less of a "typical" mom blogger than I am a book blogger. My kids were older--two aren't even "kids" anymore--and I'm LONG past the trials and tribulations of early motherhood, a period which also gives birth to many blogs. However, "mom" is one part of my identity that will never change, and I was excited to become part of the Los Angeles Moms Blog during its "soft launch" phase in the fall of 2008. (The LA blog was under the umbrella of the Silicon Valley Moms Group of regional moms' blogs, which folded in July 2010.) The first bloggers I met face-to-face were part of this group, which gave me another outlet for writing and exposed me to the whole mom-blog-marketing thing, with its opportunities and its pitfalls. But the best thing it did was help someone who always felt like "the misfit mom" finally feel like she had a moms' group of her own, for a while.

Over time, bloggers in both of these communities have come to feel like family to me... and there's more blending and crossover between them than you might realize. I know book bloggers who are moms, even if they don't often blog about their families. I know blogging moms who love to read and talk about books--and not just books for their kids. My favorite bloggers in both groups are probably the ones who, like me, are a bit less "typical"--the ones who can't help bringing a bit of themselves and their lives into their book reviews, and the ones who have something to say about the world at large as well as its effects on their families.

Thank you all for helping form me into the blogger I have become, whether you knew it or not.

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What's What: July 13 (Sunday Salon)

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

Things haven’t changed too much since my Week 2 Check-in for the From Left to Write Summer Reading Challenge. I I finished The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry on my e-reader last night, and will be working on my writeup today; I haven’t decided on my next e-book read yet.

Last week, I dug out the galley of The Leftovers I got three years ago(!) because it’s a TV series now, and since I don’t get HBO I figured I should probably, finally, read it.

• on audio

Thanks to a bunch of Facebook raves from friends, I decided not to wait to start The Silkworm on audio–I’m finding it gripping, as well as somewhat grotesque. I think readers who enjoy stories about writers and the publishing business will particularly appreciate some of the intrigue here, but this “Robert Galbraith" outing definitely presents a side of J.K. Rowling that Harry Potter barely hinted at.

What I’m watching

We just finished binging Season 4 of Supernatural last night, with four more seasons to go on Netflix. I’m not sure we’re going to continue at this rate, but if we do, we’ll be close enough to caught up to add the new episodes to our DVR rotation in the fall. I really enjoyed the meta turn the show took toward the end of the fourth season–I like a show that’s able to wink at its own batshit-craziness.

What I’m writing

I have two book reviews to work on today, and I’d like to tackle this week’s BlogHer Selfiebration query, “What does your blogging family tree look like?”, although I admit it has me a bit stumped at the moment. On a related note, I’ve really appreciated the conversation in response tomy post on last week’s question, “What would your life look like it you hadn’t started blogging?”

What caught my eye this week
Not long after a Twitter #Fabchat on the topic of “unplugging” from social media, I came across a discussion of some of the ways it meets our needs:

“That sense of belonging comes from all sorts of places online. For example, the people you follow on Twitter likely share similar interests to you. Sites like Tumblr or Pinterest showcase similar ideas based on what you like. The same goes for all the other sites out there that help facilitate real world friendships as well. In the end, how much you feel a sense of belonging depends on how you use those social networks.”

–“Why We’re Hooked On Social Networks” at Lifehacker

And a couple of takes on how publishers still meet the needs of authors and readers:

“The role of the publisher isn’t to take a book that’s pretty much finished and turn it out to the public. Editors help shape books in significant ways. A good editor doesn’t just tell you that you have made typos or that your sentences are grammatically incorrect; a good editor looks at every part of a book, from character development to plotting to theme, and tells you what doesn’t work, what works really well, what needs to be cut, what needs to be built up. A good editor reconstructs a story from the raw materials and makes it as good as it can possibly be.”

–Why We Still Need Publishers" on Book Riot

“It’s not even that I have anything against you, per se. It’s that so many of you think that publishers are just out to take your money away from you by making ‘unnecessary changes’ to your ‘babies’…You are not the best judge of your own work. Frequently, when you re-read your work, you see what you meant to say, not what you actually said. And if you’re not hiring that shit out, you’re doing a disservice to your readers and yourself.”

–“Reading Rage: I’m Kinda Sick of Your Smug, Self-Published Face” at Insatiable Booksluts

Gratuitous Photo of the Week

The first selection for Book Riot's Riot Read arrived this week!

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The Empty Spaces: Picturing A Life Without Blogging (#Selfiebration)

I've talked about how "Creativity, Connection, and Confidence" are three reasons why I (still) blog. A new post/prompt for BlogHer's Selfiebration comes at that from a slightly different angle: "How would your life look now if you hadn't started blogging?"

One thing that makes it hard to answer "what might have been" questions is that there's a chicken-and-egg aspect to them: would you miss the things you think you'd miss if you'd never known them in the first place?

There are so many people who have come into my life through blogging--all those connections, some of which have made the leap from words exchanged onscreen to time spent together in places near and far. Without blogging, I literally wouldn't know who I was missing. But I do know that blogging has given me the chance to make friends from all over, and this introvert would have even less of a social life without it.

There are things that I wouldn't have learned without blogging. There are things I wouldn't have been interested in learning without blogging. Thanks to my husband's influence, I suspect my fondness for photography might have grown anyway, but blogging is what's gotten me to explore photo-editing apps and visual expression. Blogging has definitely made me fluent in social media. My particular blogging niche has taught me a lot about publishing and the book business (*edited to add this after Kathy's comment reminded me!) And of course, blogging is responsible for my identifying myself as a writer, even as I'm still number-crunching for a living.

However, on that note, I do know of one thing that would absolutely be different: I wouldn't have a freelance side gig writing book reviews, because that came about as a direct result of what I've written here on the blog. (I had to submit three sample reviews when I applied to be one of Shelf Awareness for Readers' first reviewers). And that brings to mind a few other things that would be different:

• I wouldn't have as many books. period. Obviously, publishers wouldn't send them to me, but I just wouldn't know about as many books if I didn't learn about them from book bloggers!
• I would probably still have my irrational fear of running out of things to read, because I wouldn't have as many books.
• I would spend more time reading the books I have, which means I would get through them faster and, therefore, be more worried about not having enough of them.

I'm glad to have all the books. I'm glad to have the blog. I'm glad you took a few minutes to read my thoughts on what my life might look like without it. And if you have a blog yourself, how might your life be different without it?

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What's What in the Sunday Salon: Almost Halfway...

What I'm reading

• in print / on screen

It's summer. It's the midpoint of the year(!). And I want to do some non-required reading with my eyes and not my ears. I'm not giving up on audiobooks, of course, but it's been feeling as if that's the only format I'm reading for fun. I'm getting antsy and mildly rebellious.

One reason I bought myself the iPad mini for my birthday is that it's a more comfortable size for reading, but I haven't really used it for that purpose much until this past week. I'm almost finished with Golden State by Michelle Richmond in iBooks, and I'm determined to work e-books back into my reading rotation. That said, I'm also making my way through an August debut novel in paper-ARC format--I've learned the hard way that e-galleys are a bad idea for me, because out of sight, out of mind.

• on audio

I started and finished Aisha Tyler's memoir/essay collection Self-Inflicted Wounds this past week, and am trying to get my thoughts about it collected and written up to post this week as a farewell to Audiobook Month.

I just got my new Audible credits and am in the market for some good nonfiction listens outside the realm of memoir--leave me your recs, if you have them!

What I'm writing

I'm not signing up for NaBloPoMo in July--in fact, right now I feel like I want to blog a little less in July--but I like quite a few of the prompts for this month's theme, "Decade," so I may be doing some writing on those. (I already have, in a way, actually.)

What caught my eye this week

Two perspectives on one debate:

"Thinking that every reader should feel the exact same way about books as you do and read books the exact same way as you is not only close-minded, but it is also pretty boring. Getting to see a book through someone else’s eyes who has a completely different perspective on it can maybe change your own views on it. Or even if it doesn’t, it can still be an interesting experience and maybe help reinforce the reasons why you do feel the way that you do."

--"New Guidelines for Readers" at Book Riot

"I suppose what it comes down to is this: if you've read novels in a bunch of different genres, and you still think Twilight is your favorite, be my guest. That's your opinion, and even if I don't share it, it's yours and you should own it. But if your reading repertoire is 99% Twilight, Divergent, Matched, etc. and you declare them to be the bastions of modern literature...yes, I find myself being a wee bit judgmental. Because how can you know something is a true favorite, if you've never really tried to pair it against anything else? (And no, the Bronte and Thoreau you were required to read in high school doesn't count.)"

--"A long reflection on the relative merits of Book Shaming" from The Well-Read Redhead

And really, is it that hard to read for 15 minutes a day? Do you need a little extra motivation? It's not too late to join "The Summer Reading Challenge for Adults" hosted at From Left to Write Book Club!

Gratuitous Photo of the Week

Still waiting...can someone please let me know when tomorrow gets here?

Posted with Blogsy

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Ten Years Later: Celebrating Being Somewhere Else

The most recent prompt for BlogHer’s 10th-anniversary “Selfiebration” asks “Where were you 10 years ago?” My response also ties into my Wordless Wednesday group's theme for this week's link-up, "Melancholy." 

I did not like where I was ten years ago. I didn’t like who I was ten years ago. Reflecting on those times as I wrote this brought some of that misery back so clearly that I had to stop, and I wasn’t sure I’d come back and finish it. The fact that I did is, in itself, I think, evidence that I’m no longer where, or who, I was ten years ago.

Wait, that’s not entirely accurate. Geographically, I was in almost the same place then as I am now–about 12 miles southwest, actually, according to Google Maps–and I had the same job, in the same office. I’d recently, and intentionally, lost over twenty-five pounds, which solved a few of my problems, but didn’t make everything all better.

I’d moved halfway across the country two years earlier to get to where I was, and that hadn’t made everything all better either. Your baggage travels with you. I was forty years old, a divorced empty-nester, and living on my own for the first time in my adult life. (Well, technically, at that time, I was a single parent to my dog; my son was in college 2000 miles away and required much less in the way of “active parenting.”) It was lonely. Books and dogs are good company, but they’re just not enough all the time.

My life wasn’t what I’d expected, or wanted, and it stretched bleakly ahead whenever I though too much about it–so I tried not to. It had all changed so dramatically in just a few years, but I couldn’t envision it changing any more from the small, sad place it had become, and I couldn’t see myself finding the will to make it change.

Actions and decisions initiated by someone else may have brought me to where I was, but I was the one stuck there…until, eventually, that same someone provided the nudge that got me unstuck. When my ex-husband told me he was getting married again, I sunk a little lower and hurt a little more…and then I finally decided I was tired of sinking and hurting, and no one but me could make it stop.

The end of a long marriage truly is something to grieve, but eventually the living need to figure out how to keep living. I found my path out with cognitive behavioral therapy and a low dose of daily medication, and I remain grateful for both. They helped get me to the place where I found the people who have shaped this last decade; Life 2.0, for me–new love, new family, new sense of the future–began at forty-one.

And two years after that, my life as a blogger began. Last September, I defined “Three Reasons Why I Blog”: Creativity, Connection, and Confidence. Blogging didn’t really introduce me to any of them, but it helps me nurture them all, especially the last two:

• I believe in the authentic connections I’ve made with other readers and bloggers, and I don’t want to lose them; I can only hope those with whom I’ve connected feel the same way.
• And everything that blogging involves–the reading and learning that feed creativity of thought and expression, and which produce communication and connection–continues to help me grow as a person. It’s enriched my life in ways I couldn’t have foreseen a decade ago, and strengthens my sense of my self. Why would I not want that?

I don’t particularly like recalling where, and, who, I was ten years ago, to be honest…but looking back from here and now helps me see a little more clearly just how far I’ve come, and how I wouldn’t really be where, and who, I am now if I hadn’t gone through what I did then.

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What's What in the Sunday Salon: First Sunday of Summer

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

To my own surprise–because it’s been a while–I’m on track with review deadlines for Shelf Awareness. I have one more July release to submit to them, and am trying to decide which of the August review candidates they’ve sent me to start first. And I think I may be able to double-team it with something completely discretionary—I haven’t decided what it will be yet, but I’ve added quite a few titles to iBooks since I last read an ebook, so I’m going to look there first.

• on audio

I’m on the verge of starting something new this week on audio as well…again, I haven’t decided what it will be yet, but having just purchasedThe Silkworm the same day I posted my review of The Cuckoo’s Calling, it may be that. I finished The Martian on Thursday, so I’m playing between-audiobooks podcast catchup at the moment.

Finished listening to #TheMartian on this morning's drive. Who else could barely breathe for the last 45 minutes of it? #AudiobookMonth
— Florinda PVasquez (@florinda_3rs) June 19, 2014

What I’m watching

We started Season 3 of Supernatural on Netflix this weekend, and are debating putting Orange is the New Black into the queue.

What I’m writing

BlogHer’s 10th-anniversary “Selfiebration” prompted me to write about online friends a couple of weeks ago, and asked me to talk about where I was 10 years ago this week. That post will go up on Wednesday…and it was not the most fun I’ve ever had writing anything, so consider yourself warned.

It was much more fun writing, and talking about, my feedback for the BEA Bloggers Conference planners, which I posted this past Tuesday.

What caught my eye this week

"The phrase “blogging for books” suggests that the work of bloggers is done in service of publishers in order to get more books. That is just not the case – and not the motivation – for all the successful bloggers that I personally know. 

“When many of us started blogging five or six or seven years ago, the idea of getting books to review wasn’t even a consideration. Bloggers weren’t on publisher’s radars until they started to see us as active, engaged, excited readers they could reach out to directly. At that point, the narrative shifted to this idea of ‘working with’ each other or that writing reviews was a ‘favor’ that bloggers could do for authors/publishers.”

—Kim’s ontinued discussion (read the comments, too!) of “Blogging for Books versus Blogging Because of Books” at Sophisticated Dorkiness

“Suddenly, in my late thirties, I was binge-watching a television show. I was pining over fictional characters – and I was writing my own stories for them when the official versions ran out. I was making costumes and going to conventions. I was lit up, inspired, excited as I hadn’t been by anything since childhood.”

—I was a little older when it happened to me, but “A Brief History of Fandom, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being a Fan” at The Mary Sue definitely rang some bells!

“When I went back to work, I read on my breaks and during lunch, and after the boys were down for the night. It became less of a hobby and more of a thing I did to remind myself that I was still my own person with my own interests outside of breast pumps and nap schedules- something I think is important for kids to see. How do you find time to read when you have kids? You make it, because it matters. I want my boys to recognize that mommy (and yes, I mean specifically mommy) is a fully-developed human whose life is not entirely composed of them.”

–And I was a good deal younger when this happened to me, but I wholeheartedly applauded Amanda Nelson’s “Have Babies, Keep Reading” rant at Book Riot.

Gratuitous Photo of the Week

First Day of Summer, 2013, Boston

Happy First Weekend of Summer!

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Because They Asked: My Thoughts on "BEA Bloggers"

This post was adapted from an e-mail I sent to the planners of the BEA Bloggers Conference in response to their request for feedback on the 2014 event and considerations in planning for 2015. I wanted to share it here so we could talk about what you think, too.

Another place you can share what you think about book-blogger gatherings--and help to plan one!--is the Facebook group Book Blog UnCon 2015, which was recently formed to work on producing such an event for next year. The group is an open one--if you're a book blogger on Facebook who's interested in being part of this, you're welcome to join us there.

I was pleased that there were two tiers of programming at the BEA Bloggers Conference this year, serving beginners and more advanced bloggers. As a seven-year blogging veteran, I didn't go to any of the 101-level sessions, but I've heard good things about a couple of them (and pretty bad things about "The Publishing Process: How Bloggers Have Changed the Game," which by many accounts greatly missed the mark.) I did not hear such favorable opinions about some of the 201-level sessions, unfortunately. It may be that it's harder to develop programming suited to more advanced bloggers, but I'm not sure that's really the problem.

I attended a couple of sessions that looked good on paper, but weren't executed well. The Design 201 session was essentially two side-by-side presentations by designers, with one presenter trying to recruit users to his own social-media/blogging platform (BookLikes), and with neither presenter truly offering "advanced" design advice. The "Blogging and the Law" panel offered some interesting information about plagiarism and copyright protection, but didn't address legal concerns specific to book bloggers.

The session that I moderated, "Technology 201: Ad Networks," seemed to be fairly well-received, and I think the content and presentation were appropriate to its target audience. The panel was balanced, and we structured it as a discussion/Q&A with no formal presentations, which I think may have been more engaging for the audience. I know--because I was told directly--that people appreciated not getting sales pitches from the two vendors who were on the panel.

I feel that one issue with BEA Bloggers as a whole is that it's not entirely clear on who the "bloggers" are. As keynoter Maureen Johnson noted in response to an audience question, a "book blog" and an "author blog" are different things. Because of BEA Bloggers' beginnings in the grass-roots Book Blogger Convention (2010-2011), book bloggers look to this event to be our conference, and while my impression is that most of the Bloggers Conference attendees still identify as book bloggers--we read and blog about books written by others--some are authors who blog primarily about their own books, and others are publishing-industry insiders who blog about various aspects of the business.

Book bloggers, author bloggers, and industry bloggers may not want the same things from BEA Bloggers, and I realize that BEA Bloggers may not be in a position to diversify its content to address the needs of all groups, particularly if it also wants to offer programming to address differing experience levels among bloggers. With that said, I do have some thoughts about where the conference can go from here to serve the interests of book bloggers, based on conversations with my peers.

• When I talk about the Bloggers Conference with other book bloggers, one point that comes up repeatedly is that we want this to be an opportunity to interact with and learn from each other. We would like more book bloggers on panels in general, and especially as moderators. We'd also like sessions structured as workshops, and/or allowing for small-group discussions, mixed in with more traditional panels and presentations. The more experienced bloggers I've talked with are especially interested in this.

• All sessions, regardless of how they're structured, could be better if the panelists have more time to prepare. Barring emergencies, I think panel members should be invited and confirmed no less than a month before the conference. (Personally, I was invited to moderate my session barely two weeks before BEA. I live on the West Coast, and if I hadn't already been registered and made my travel plans, I couldn't have accepted the invitation with so little lead time.) The planning team might also consider offering more guidance and direction in structuring sessions, particularly to panelists without much conference and/or speaking experience.

• I think it's vitally important for the Bloggers Conference to have bloggers involved in an Advisory Board capacity and applaud that it's put such a group in place, but I wonder if it may be time to make some changes to its membership. 

(UPDATED 6/18/2014): A current member of the Advisory Committee commented on the link to this post on Facebook, stating that she is stepping down this year because of some of the issues mentioned in this post. Her impression is that BEA doesn't take the conference seriously enough to devote the time, staff, and funding resources necessary to build it into something valuable. This is sad, but honestly not surprising.

I recognize that as part of Book Expo America, the Bloggers Conference needs to address publishing-industry interests as well as those of bloggers. While those interests often align, there are also differences to consider. BEA Bloggers seems to be giving more weight to bloggers' interests each year, but there's still room to do more...if it wants to.

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What's What in the Sunday Salon--June 15, 2014

I'm not sure I have many regular readers here who are dads, but if that's you, Happy Father's Day--and if you have a dad, do something nice for him today.

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

I’ve just finished one July release, Christopher Beha’s second novel Arts & Entertainments, and am submitting my review to Shelf Awarenessthis weekend, after which I’ll retjoin another ARC from the same source, Yannick Murphy’s paperback original This Is the Water, in progress. I really need to do a better job of checking publication dates when I’m deciding the oder in which to read the ARCs I get from them, since it actually does matter when those reviews run.

• on audio

I’m just past halfway through The Martian and quite enjoying both the story and the narration so far.

What I’m watching

The TV was pretty quiet this week, thanks to various other activities, and the DVR recordings still aren’t stacking up. We’re almost done with Season 2 of Supernatural on Netfilx, and it’s still going to take a while to catch up with that show (currently on season 96 or something).

What I’m writing

I’m current on book reviews for the moment, so I was able to post some thoughts on the “reality” of online friendships for BlogHer’s“Selfiebration” project a few days ago. I also wrote a lengthy email to the organizers of the BEA Bloggers Conference in response to a request for feedback that they sent me, and I’ll be posting a version of that here as an “open letter” on Tuesday–I’m hoping for some good discussion on that one!

What caught my eye this week

If you’re a Feedly subscriber, it was a tough week to keep up with your blog reading–the service was taken down by hackers three days in a row. They seem to have recovered as of this weekend, but I would recommend setting up an account with another feed service as a backup in case they get hit again; I signed up with Feedbin on Friday. Like Feedly, it works with my favorite mobile feed-reader apps., Mr. Reader (iPad only)and Unread (iPhone and iPad), which was one of my top requirements.

(Speaking of mobile feed readers, I was involved in a Twiiter conversation about their effect on blog comments this past week–you can see the highlights here on Storify. Do you agree that they’ve contributed to decreased commenting activity?)

The Feedly outage led to more conversations and fewer links shared on Twitter this week, so let's play a little catch-up:

• “Within that description, however, lies a multitude of experiences — a hall of mirrors in which my version of Twitter is nothing like your version, and nothing like that of the person sitting next to you on the train or the airplane, or at the basketball game.”—Speaking of Twitter, some observations about its ongoing, years-long identity crisis 

• “But what’s wrong with reading for fun? Especially at a time when publishers are laying off staffers and bookstores are closing, why condemn others for what they choose to read? When you deem certain types of culture acceptable and unacceptable, people deeply internalize these ideas and do, in fact, feel ashamed about what they read or listen to or watch, whether it’s chick lit or YA or whatever the genre du jour to malign is.”—Rachel Kramer Bussel declares “We Will Not Be Reader-Shamed” 

• “According to The Publishing Industry, it’s not enough for readers to just read books anymore. The point of it all is to take readers, convert them to fans, then push them to become evangelists for a book or author. Real readers have to become evangelicals for books because evangelism is, apparently, the only way to drive sales.”—Kim asks “Why Isn’t Just Reading Enough Anymore?” 

• “I wonder how I would have felt about this book had there not been a blazing publicity campaign, and if I had not felt manipulated into reading. Would I have been more forgiving about its thin characterizations, its one-sided plot, its glib sleights of hand? Would I have received the book as I receive most books—as the best a well-meaning author could do?”—Beth Kephart questions the effects of the hype machine

Gratuitous Photo of the Week

I built this from the contents of a fortune cookie and my own photo of a sunset with the Union photo app on the iPad. Instagram liked it.

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"Si, sono vero." Yes, They're Real (Friends)

Jenna Hatfield’s post for BlogHer’s 10th-anniversary #Selfiebration, “Don’t tell me they’re not real,” couldn’t have popped up in my feed reader at a more perfect time. It's been a few days now since someone described a blogger get-together during BEA week as “the Twitter avatars come to life,” and the relationships in my life that were born online have been on my mind.

As a socially-awkward sort with somewhat oddball interests and no talent for small talk—I’m fine once we know each other, but initial encounters are difficult—I might be overstating it to call the the social benefits of online life “lifesavers,” but they’ve certainly been life-enhancers for me. And I’m lucky to have someone in my daily, face-to-face life who truly gets that; my husband and I met online.

I’ve had countless online conversations as a blogger, Tweeter, and Facebooker since I started hanging out here regularly over seven years ago. People have left the conversation along the way, new ones have entered it, and we’ve talked about all sorts of things together. Some of those conversations were relatively brief, but nonetheless memorable; some of them have lasted for years. Some have been light, some have been silly, some have been revealing, some have been tough. And of course, they don’t all make the transition to stronger connection and the deeper bonds of friendship…but some of them did, and continue to do so, and I am grateful for that every day.

Many of these conversations may never take place outside the ether of the Internet, where we’re not bounded by geography. That doesn’t make them less significant than those that take place over the phone or face to face, or mean that the connections forged through them are any less genuine. You may have people in your daily, face-to-face life who can’t grasp the truth of that…and without experiencing it themselves, they may never get it. That doesn’t mean they get to take that truth away from you.

Having said all that, sometimes those conversations and connections do get the chance to happen in the same physical space, in the so-called real world–and even though we considered these friendships fully real before we met one another in the same room, they’re undeniably and permanently enriched when we’re finally able to share a meal, or attend an event together, or talk to each other in our speaking voices rather than our written ones.

1. 
   

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

    @myfriendamy @BethFishReads And how! But the joy of seeing your blogging friends IRL never changes :-).

   4 DAYS AGO
   
2. 
   

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

    MT @RebeccaSchinsky, summing up the week: "The book (and blog!) people are always the best part." #BEA14

   6 DAYS AGO
   
3. 
   

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

    .@tiftalksbooks Meeting your blogging friends & hanging out with them IRL is the Best.Thing.Ever. @ArmchairBEA

   6 DAYS AGO

I will be going to the tenth annual BlogHer Conference next month, and though I’m primarily going for the agenda, I’m more understanding now of those who primarily go for the parties than I was the last time I attended…sort of. I’ll never be someone who goes to conferences “for the parties”–that’s not this introverted bookworm’s personality. But I have become someone who goes to conferences because they’re an opportunity to spend time with my friends—to continue and expand on the conversations we have through our blogs and Facebook and Twitter feeds, and to have new experiences, together, that will add to the content and subtext of those conversations.

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