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Imagine you see a book mentioned on a blog. The blogger loved it and they made it sound interesting. You make a note of the title with plans to check out the book later. Then you see it on another blog. And then another one. And another one. It becomes apparent that a whole bunch of people have read it all at the same time and are talking about it at the same time. Does that make you want to see out the book more? If you are me, it probably doesn't.
Whether or not seeing a book reviewed on a bunch of blogs pushes my interest depends on a lot of factors. Have the bloggers all planned to read the book together? A bunch of book bloggers got together a few years ago to read Middlemarch and I thought that was pretty cool. Last fall Chrisbookarama hosted a readalong for The Princess Bride. That was awesome. (Let's be honest, the thought of anything involving The Princess Bride not being awesome is simply inconceivable.)
Then there are of course books that pop up seasonally. October is a popular month for reading spooky tales, and I'm never surprised to see a bunch of reviews for Dracula pop up on blogs. Anytime a big book release comes up, something akin to a new Harry Potter novel or even a new Nora Roberts, I'd be surprised not to see posts about it come up all over the place. If a movie is coming out that is based on a book, I expect to see plenty of reviews of that book as people rush to read it before seeing the movie.
Those are all things that can peak my interest. The type of book blog bonanza that doesn't is the concentrated effort to build up buzz about a new book. Let me give you an example of what I mean. A couple of years ago there was a book that started making the rounds. I saw it on a couple of blogs before the release date. That's pretty common as many bloggers get advance reading copies. As the release date got close, I saw it on more blogs. After it was released it was on even more blogs. Then I started seeing giveaways for the book. Then those people read it and blogged about it. At first my interest was piqued, but it eventually started to feel like the book blogosphere was a big commercial for this one book.
That is not to say that I think that the bloggers who read and reviewed this book were not being honest when they said they liked the book. I stand by their integrity. The problem wasn't with what any one voice was saying it; it was the number of voices and the volume that they created. I just searched my feedreader for references to this book and I got over 70 entries. The number of book blogs is currently about one-third of what it used to be. I'd expect the number to be at least couple that if my book feeds were at full strength. Added into that, the vast majority of the reviews that I saw for that title were not purchased. They were mostly review copies that bloggers received or won in giveaways. Hardly anyone actually purchased the book.
I had considered buying the book, or at least getting it from the library. People really did enjoy it and it I was interested. Until I saw it pop up for the twentieth and then thirtieth time. At that point I just wanted to stick a fork in my eye. The Story Siren wrote a post about it recently in which she called this the hype monster. While a certain amount of hype can pull people toward a book, it can also push people away.
The highly anticipated book! You know what I’m talking about. These books go through the nines.... they are primped and promoted. Not only by the publishers but by readers and bloggers.
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I heard how wonderful it was... I was witness to the “HYPE” and honestly, all that hype made
