My Take on the Book Blogger Convention

I was excited at the prospect of attending the Book Blogger Convention. Getting that many book lovers together in one place to discuss everything to do with book blogging was an inspired idea. The organizers obviously put a lot of time, thought and effort in, making something so big and incredibly important come to life.

There were some really fantastic parts of the convention. There were also some parts that didn't necessarily pertain to me. This was the first year and the event went well beyond everyones expectations.

We started off with registration, which was done quickly and efficiently. We were on the early side, so it truly took seconds. Upon registration we were given our goody-bags, huge tote bags filled with books and swag. We went in for breakfast, which was amazing. Hot sandwiches, potatoes, pastries, muffins, fruit, juice, and the ever important coffee.

After breakfast we went into the meeting room where we would spend the rest of the day. After a quick welcome, with the introduction of the organizers and a thank you to the contributors, we settled in for the keynote speaker. Maureen Johnson (a YA author I hadn't read before) was hilarious. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. My favorite quote from the speech - "bloggers are activists for books." It really is the perfect description of what we are all doing here.

Some other things Maureen said that I think every book blogger needs to know - When interviewing authors, don't ask general questions. Things like "Where do you get your ideas from?" and "Why do you write?" drive authors insane. Ask questions that show you know who the author is and have actually read their books.

After a short break, Ron Hogan spoke about professionalism and ethics in blogging. I had never heard of Ron before (Sorry, apparently he's a huge deal. I just live under a rock). I have pages and pages of notes from his hour. At the end of this talk, there were a million questions, most of which had to go unanswered due to time. Professionalism and ethics could have been at least two hours long and we still wouldn't have covered everything. This was by far the most important hour of the entire convention and I hope it is expanded upon next year.

After Ron, we broke for lunch. Trays upon trays of sandwiches and wraps, plus soda, water and chips. So very good. Lunch was a lot of fun, with bloggers and publishers sitting together talking about our one true love - books.

After lunch, we went back into the meeting room for the first panel - Writing and Building Content. I think I was expecting something different. The panel spent a lot of the time focused on writing reviews. How to do it, what to focus on, etc. I felt the panel would have better served the attendees had it focused on things other than reviews. As book bloggers, we already write reviews and each have our own format and style. It's something we adopt early on in blogging. I was hoping for a discussion about bookish content beyond reviews. A few of the panelists series were touched upon, but there was nothing about really creating something new that would appeal to our readers.

Next was Marketing. A lot of the information presented in the beginning of the panel was very valuable. Twitter, Facebook and GoodReads were mentioned. Going to where the readers are instead of expecting them to come to you seemed to be the most basic advice, but it's something a lot of us never considered and really needed to hear. Once the topic turned to stats, things went downhill.

Bloggers and publishers need to come up with some hard and fast guidelines. This was the perfect opportunity to get the dialogue going. Unfortunately, no one wants to be the bad guy. No one wanted to say that any sort of numbers - be it followers, commentors, hits, etc. - make one blogger stand out from the others as being more valuable to publishers. Something has to be decided upon and yes, some are going to be disappointed that they don't make the cut. That's life. The party-line of "as long as you try your best" isn't helpful to anyone. Publishers don't know who to work with and bloggers don't know what their goals should be. If a blogger is "trying real hard" but no one hears her, how is that helping anyone?

I honestly don't think that anyone would be really upset if guidelines were set and they didn't measure up. I wouldn't. It would give me something to strive for. The focus really needed to be what matters without worrying about excluding anyone or hurting anyone's feelings. A more hardcore look at trying to achieve a better reach, how to get more exposure, how to draw new readers while retaining the ones you have and getting ideas of where to go from the place you are could have been very helpful as well.

Next was Blogging with Social Responsibility. I though social responsibility was defined as owning our words and taking responsibility for what we put out there. Maybe even a talk about how taking a stand that goes against the majority doesn't have to be a nerve-wracking experience as long as it's done in a professional and intelligent manner. That excited me as I think there's a lot of fear, especially for new bloggers, over saying anything negative for fear of angering or hurting people. Alas, I misunderstood and the focus was something completely different. This panel was dedicated to blogging for a cause, be it people of color, glbt, or even just trying to raise more awareness for a certain charity. I can't imagine this pertained to the majority of us. Most of us blog about our love of books, without an additional goal in mind. While this may have been very important to some, most were, well, bored. I saw people who fell asleep. The guy behind me was reading a book. Had the conference had different tracks that we could choose from, this would have been wonderful for those who chose it. Having all of us sit through it when the information didn't matter to us was kind of a waste of the limited time we had.

The last panel of the day was the Impact of the Relationship between Author and Blogger. I don't have any notes from this since I was so burnt out from the last panel. I remember thinking that we should be focusing on the potential pitfalls of the the relationship as opposed to an all out lovefest, but I may have been in a punchy mood. The basic gist was that authors love bloggers. Bloggers love authors. Becoming friends with an author may make you a bit biased and you should disclose this information if you review their book.

Finally, there were some closing remarks and we all headed into the hall to say our goodbyes. I met some amazing people. I learned a great deal. I kept my mouth shut because I figured my comments were going to be seen as combative, rather than constructive. They usually are. I'm not good with the public speaking. Words don't come out the way I mean them too. That's why blogging - with the ever important backspace key - is the appropriate forum for my opinions. Perhaps I should have spoken up. Maybe I made the right decision by not bringing up topics that went against the comments from panels. We'll see how things go next year. Yup, I'm going. The conference, for all my bitching here, was truly well done. For the very first convention, it was an amazing experience and while I didn't love every moment, I think the experience was valuable and next year is sure to be twice as good.

If you went, what did you think of Book Blogger Con? What did you love? What didn't you like? If you didn't go, will you go next year? What topics would you like to see covered?