The Right Thing To Do: On Blogger Ethics

I want to revisit something from my “blogger development” Armchair BEA post:

THERE’S NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO DO THIS.

My best blogging advice is “Read a lot of other blogs.” You’ll see what you like and what you don’t, and as you learn what inspires you, you’ll figure out how those inspirations can shape your own blogging.

I really have come to believe, after more than six years and 1900 posts, that there isn’t one “right” way to blog. However, I also firmly believe that there are “right things TO DO” as a blogger. This blog has worn a Blog With Integrity badge for nearly four years, and shortly after I added it, I posted some of my thoughts about what that means to me:

“On a different scale and at a more specialized level, the book-blogging community has been debating some of (these) issues--disclosure, transparency, compensation, recognition, responsibility--for quite a while. (Edited to add: And we still are. Appropriately. It’s an evolving environment, and that requires this to be an ongoing conversation.) 

"...While we may not all blog about the same topics, we are facing some of the same issues and challenges no matter where we focus. Blog with Integrity is one response to that. It's a response to the marketers and PR people who ask us to post their press releases and plug their products (Edited to add: Books are products too!) as if they're doing us a favor. It's a response to those who send out one-size-fits-all pitches that don't reflect any acquaintance with the blog and its writer. It's a response to the bloggers who cheerily accept those pitches and products and do those favors, without necessarily acknowledging their source, because they want the products and the compensation and the attention--and who have complicated the game for bloggers who don't want to play it that way.”

I think that if you’re going to review books on your blog, having a posted, clearly expressed review policy is essential...even if your policy is that you don’t accept books from publishers or authors. and only review books you buy or borrow from the library. And if you do accept books for review, you need to be aware of the (also-evolving) FTC disclosure guidelines...and follow them. These practices address some of the more concrete concerns of book blogging, but things get fuzzier when it comes to the more creative side of things.

I believe what I said earlier about being inspired by what we see other bloggers are doing. That said, inspiration and plagiarism and very different things.

My general stance is that if you tweak an idea you’ve seen elsewhere and make it your own, it’s courteous to give credit--via a link, at the very least--to the blog and/or post that started you on that path. If you substantially quote or copy someone else’s work, setting off the quotes and attributing to the original in both link and text are critical. My own policy is to make every effort to link and credit when I post something inspired by, or expanding on, something I encountered on another blog. In some cases, the blog linked may not be the primary source of the material, but I do try to make sure I give credit to the place I found it. (If you ever find that I have quoted you without proper link or attribution, please e-mail me at 3.rsblog AT Gmail DOT com with your link and any necessary correction. I would appreciate not being called out publicly, in comments, for honest errors of that sort, but I will edit the post and acknowledge the revision.)

When it comes to most matters of ethics, I feel that even the most complex codes of policies and procedures are underpinned by a pretty fundamental idea: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You. Be fair, be honest, be reliable...and hope that those you deal with do the same.

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Many Paths, But No One Right One: On Blogger Development

Because yesterday was my Wordless Wednesday Link-up, I didn’t talk about Armchair BEA’s Day 2 discussion topic, “Development,” then. But since I won’t be talking about the Day 3 topic, “Giveaways,” at all, I’m taking the opportunity to backtrack:

“Day 2 we talk about how we develop ourselves as bloggers.  Have you branched out into your community? Do you partner with other bloggers?  Have you gone "pro" or begun supplementing your income through your blog?  Are you a long-term blogger, and how has your online personality developed over the years?”

I’ve been doing this since 2007. If I never changed up the way I do it, I doubt I’d have stuck with it this long! Granted, some things have changed more than others. The basic format of my Book Talk review posts has stayed pretty constant for quite awhile, and I haven’t made any major changes in the look of the blog for nearly four years. (That said, I did make a change a week or two ago; after almost five years, I left the BlogHer Publishing Network to join the Riot Ad Network.)  However, my posting frequency has varied from daily to “almost daily” to “three times a week if I can manage it” and back again; I’ve introduced, and dropped, recurring features; and at times the content has skewed so much more toward the “randomness” than the “reading” and “‘riting” that I’ve had mixed feelings about even identifying as a book blogger.

The biggest thing that helps me keep hold of that identity is the community of book bloggers, and the opportunities I’ve had as part of that community. I’ve teamed up with other bloggers on several projects over the years (including organizing Armchair BEA), and I’ve had the great luck to meet quite a few bloggers in person, both locally in Southern California and in New York City at BEA 2011 and 2011. (And in some cases there’s been overlap.) Face-to-face connection has cemented some friendships born online, and helped to sustain a connection even when the common bond of blogging has faded. The composition of the community changes as bloggers come and go, but the concept of it endures.  

I’ve always hoped that blogging would help me grow in new directions--and I believe it has--but sometimes it seems that growth as a blogger and growth of the blog don’t line up perfectly. In my first few years, I tried to follow much of the popular advice for growing a blog--recommendations about content, posting, promotion, and all that. I think I learned a lot of value from that, but it took me much too long to understand that advice aimed mostly at “professional” bloggers might not always fit the approach of “hobbyist” bloggers--and I’ve had to accept that my life’s not in a place right now where this really can be anything other than a hobby (although it has led to a little side job). That understanding leads to another one, which may the most important lesson of all:

THERE’S NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO DO THIS.

My best blogging advice is “Read a lot of other blogs.” You’ll see what you like and what you don’t, and as you learn what inspires you, you’ll figure out how those inspirations can shape your own blogging. And sometimes, stepping back for a bit ends up being the best way to move forward.

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Wordless Wednesday: New York City Blue

These photos were taken in and around New York City during my visit for Book Expo America 2012. Our Linked-Up Wordless Wednesday prompt this week is "Blue/Purple"--I'm a bit blue because I'm not back there this week at BEA 2013. #NextYearInNYC

Top: Lower Manhattan, seen from New York Harbor. Botton left: Times Square. Botton right: the Chrysler Building.

My photos, edited with Snapseed and collaged with PicFrame

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Armchair BEA Is Underway!

Armchair BEA 2013 is officially underway! It's the fourth time around for this popular annual event, and the first time I'll be able to go (mostly) all in on the festivities since 2010. We're starting off by going around the virtual table and introducing ourselves today, as we choose five of the official Introduction Questions to answer.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

I answered some of these very same questions for a profile at Book Bloggers International last month. I've been blogging in this very space since March 2007, and I started because I'd never developed the habit of keeping a reading journal; doing so online seemed like it might be easier than writing things down by hand in notebooks. As it happens, I discovered pretty quickly that I wanted to "journal" about many other things besides books--but they're still the primary reason I keep doing this, and am closing in on 2000 posts here.

Have you previously participated in Armchair BEA? What brought you back for another year? If you have not previously participated, what drew you to the event?

I am pleased to have been present for the "birth" of Armchair BEA during a Twitter conversation in the early spring of 2010, and am part of the original founding team for this event. I was less of an active participant in 2011 and 2012 because I attended the real BEA, but I've continued to help with the preparations and behind-the-scenes coordination each year, and I'm glad I'll be able to join in this year's activities more fully!

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013?

I have about three or four books in various states of completion right now: one audio, one ARC, one paperback, and a couple of ebooks. The only good news is that none of them has a review deadline (the ARC did, but I got my dates mixed up and missed it, so now I'm just working on finishing it for myself). My reading year started out well, but the last couple of months have been...well, let's say challenging (and not in the "reading challenge" sense). I've dialed back my "required" reading--a freelance review gig, an online book club, and blog tours--till after vacation next month, and then I really hope I can get back on track!

What is your favorite part about the book blogging community?

I have gotten to know people whom I feel have become real friends. My only real regret about not being in New York City this week is that I'm missing the only opportunity I get to see some of them in the "real world." But online or off-, I love the support, the camaraderie, and the knowledge that you can almost always find someone to join you in a project, no matter how nutty it might be!

Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

I'm seeing an interesting change lately, particularly among bloggers who've been around for close to as long as I have; there seems to be much more selective, considered approach to being part of the publishing-industry marketing apparatus. Much of the "FREE BOOKS!" review-copy excitement appears to have faded, and some bloggers have taken--or taken back--an "I'm doing this for myself" attitude. Personally, I'm trying to find a mix that works for me; I suspect I'm not the only one who's working on that, and I'm curious to see where it all goes.

If you're stopping by today for Armchair BEA, I'm glad you did--please say hello!

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Right Here, Right Now: Sunday Status

Time: Saturday evening, for posting Sunday morning


Place: Home, which has been emptied of much surplus stuff this weekend: dozens of DVDs and CDs which have been rendered superfluous by digital media, plus about seven bags of clothing. I'm working up my strength to tackle the bookshelves...

Eating: Nothing at the moment, as we just came home from one of our favorite Italian restaurants a little while ago.

Drinking: Lots of water. Dinner made me thirsty!

Reading: Not enough to mention. It's not been a good week for hitting the books, but with an extra day of weekend, I'm hoping to make some time for that tomorrow. (Unless I'm cleaning out bookshelves.) At the very least, I want to do some reading up on things to see and do around Boston, Lincoln, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine--we'll be visiting New England in less than three weeks!

Watching: On and off over the course of the weekend, the 15 new episodes of Arrested Development on Netflix. Who's with me?

Listening: The TV is on while I'm writing, and Chris Hardwick is talking to Guillermo del Toro and Katee Sackhoff on this week's installment of The Nerdist on BBC America.

Blogging: I actually managed to post two book reviews this past week! (Apparently, it was the week of Christinas around here.) However, most of the blogging agenda for the week ahead will be brought to you by Armchair BEA.


Pondering: I officially reached the "Now I'm sorry I'm not going to BEA this year" threshold a few days ago, mostly because of the people I won't be seeing this week. #NYC2014?

Enjoying: A small sense of accomplishment, thanks to being nearly done with the annual audit AND clearing all that stuff out of the house!

Avoiding: I mentioned that my bookshelves were next on the "cleaning out" project list, didn't I?

Anticipating: Getting ALL done with the annual audit--and hoping it means more time for reading and blogging!

Gratuitous Photo of The Week, via an email from my uncle with the subject line "Abbott and Costello predicted it!"

How's your weekend going?

 

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(Book Club) Book Talk: ORPHAN TRAIN, by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train: A Novel (book trailer)
Christina Baker Kline (Facebook) (Twitter) (Goodreads)
William Morrow Paperbacks (April 2013), paperback original (ISBN 0061950726 / 9780061950728)
Fiction (historical), 304 pages
Source: Publisher, for review consideration
Reason for Reading: SheReads Book Club selection, May 2013

Opening lines (Prologue): “I believe in ghosts. They’re the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind. Many times in my life I have felt them around me, observing, witnessing, when no one in the living world knew or cared what happened.

“I am ninety-one years old, and almost everyone who was once in my life is now a ghost.

“Sometimes these spirits have been more real to me than people, more real than God. They fill silence with their weight, like bread dough, dense and rising under cloth. My gram, with her kind eyes and talcum-dusted skin. My da, sober, laughing. My mam, singing a tune. The bitterness and alcohol and depression are stripped away from these phantom incarnations, and they console and protect me in death as they never did in life.”

Book description, from the publisher’s website:

Bird's eye panorama of Manhattan & New York City, 1873 (via Wikipedia)

Between 1854 and 1929, so-called “orphan” trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Comments: I first became aware of the “orphan trains” when I read Laura Moriarty’s historical novel The Chaperone last year. The trains ran between the East Coast and the Midwest between 1854 and 1929, with the mission of finding hope and homes in small-town America for children who’d been orphaned or otherwise left to fend for themselves in the overcrowded, impoverished streets of the city. Organized by the Children’s Aid Society, the trains--a well-intentioned, if controversial, program with a mixed success record--were one the United States’ earliest foster-care initiatives.

In Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline looks to this history to inform the story of two girls’ experience with foster care, eighty years apart. in 1928, Niamh Power, the only surviving daughter of an Irish immigrant family lost in a New York City tenement fire, is delivered to Children’s Aid by neighbors and placed on a train headed west. The train makes several stops along the way, and the children--a diminishing number at each stop--are presented to the locals; some will leave with new families, while others may end up as farm or domestic labor. Niamh is taken in by the Byrnes, a Minnesota couple who give her work in their small clothing business, a mattress on the floor in the hallway, and a new name, Dorothy; the placement ends when the Great Depression starts, and the girl’s luck goes from bad to worse until she ends up with the kindly Nielsens, where her name is changed one more time--to Vivian, after their own lost child.

Niamh/Vivian’s story is set in parallel with that of Molly, a modern-day seventeen-year-old who’s close to aging out of the Maine foster-care system. When Molly’s future is jeopardized by a reckless act--she steals a copy of Jane Eyre from the public library--a deal is struck; she can avoid the juvenile-justice system by doing fifty hours of community service. Thanks to her boyfriend, she finds an assignment helping an elderly woman sort through decades of belongings. The woman is Vivian, and despite the many years that separate them, their common frame of reference in foster care leads to the development of a real connection between her and Molly.

While Molly’s story is secondary to Vivian’s, Kline succeeds in making both of them distinct and intriguing characters, and although the last few chapters of the novel feel a bit rushed, the relationship that grows between them feels genuine. Although the behavior of some of the supporting characters can come across as clichéd at times, they don’t feel flat or overly stereotypical; Kline seems to write even the villains of her piece with some degree of sympathy. Orphan Train is engrossing and engaging, blending little-known history into a novel with contemporary resonance.

Rating: 3.75/5

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Wordless Wednesday: Washing Dishes

This week's Linked-up Wordless Wednesday prompt is "Washing Dishes." Y'know, sometimes I'd just as soon not...

Guess where we went to get it to go?

My iPhone photos, edited with Snapseed and collaged with PicFrame

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