Comments on: CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! YOU ARE ALL TOOLS!

By: Steve Weber

Steve Weber — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:03:51 +0000

Couldn’t agree more with the original poster. Where is it written that bloggers have no ethics but other journalists do? No logic at all.

Authors and publishers have been giving away ARCs to media for decades, I haven’t heard any outrage about it.

Sure, the S&S promotion is silly, it’s advertising. I don’t blame them for trying to get free advertising from bloggers who use it.

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:04:50 +0000

I’m with you Ed. And about to link to it.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:45:36 +0000

Richard: To be clear, I understand slattern to be “a vulgar promiscuous woman to flout propriety,” according to my dictionary. The intention was to suggest that she was ideologically (as opposed to sexually) promiscuous, flouting propriety here on the vulgar assumption that litbloggers are tools.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:13:06 +0000

I agreed with most of your comments on that blog but I think calling someone a “slattern” is beneath you.

Maybe I’m just too old to get it.

By: Matthew Tiffany

Matthew Tiffany — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:41:48 +0000

Darby Dixon took my Grammy’s “Left Behind” book. I need to get the word out about this guy.

By: Fausto

Fausto — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:00:07 +0000

Ed, I make you spot on. Not so long ago, I was reviewing a lot of music. At first, I only wrote about cd’s I had bought and liked, but since the website I was working for got more success we started getting a lot of promotional copies. I never did mention wether what I reviewed was free or not, because I just can’t see the point. What is quite obvious however, is that the average ratings given to the albums fell considerably after I started getting all those free cd’s, because I was getting a lot more crap than when I was spending my own cash – and I think that any serious, honest reviewer, blogger, would amdit the same happened to him.

By: marydell

marydell — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:28:33 +0000

I absolutely love you, Ed. "I didn’t receive the Simon & Schuster email that Bofo did, perhaps because the folks at Simon & Schuster know very well that I would have been adamantly against it." It's highly doubtful S&S went through their mailing list and removed your e-mail address because of your objection to hokey promotions. If you've honestly been wondering about which blogs have been gushing over the S&S book in question, take a look at this google search.

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:15:12 +0000

I know her real name but I’m not going to say what it is. It is not Kim Bofo. She works on a magazine, as far as I can tell. So she’s probably a magazine editor.

She is Australian. Australians have a ‘thing’ about names. We tend to shorten them and make them end in a vowel. Hence Kim becomes Kimbo.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:29:56 +0000

Oh, another “full disclosure” blog post that actually has nothing to do with the idea whatsoever? Well, I’ll disclose this: I probably read more books per year than most people and I STILL won’t be able to talk about them all, let alone read them. Whoop de freaking doo.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:51:46 +0000

Glad to see that you were so easily corrupted, Jeff. Who knew that you were such an easy tool?

By: Jeff Bryant

Jeff Bryant — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:49:45 +0000

Bofo, has the potential to be a new word in the growing litblogger dictionary.

By the way, I got to this comment section for free. Thanks Ed!

By: Megan

Megan — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:11:57 +0000

I don’t get it. I haven’t paid for a book in years. I’m a buyer at a bookstore. Should I be mentioning that every time I talk about a book? I only review what I want when I want and I assume those that read me know that. No need to get panties in a twist. Or jockeys. Whatever.

By: Rake

Rake — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:50:12 +0000

Call-Me-A-Cheap-Whore Week continues. Same problem here as with the Gessen interview: lame, misdirected ire and (as a natural handmaiden) lack-of-specificity in the “examples.”

As Sinead sez: Fight the real enemy.

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:29:24 +0000

whether or not a book under discussion has been received for free by a publisher

LOLOL