Let’s Talk Bookish – Responsibilities as a book blogger!

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Let’s talk bookish is a weekly meme, created and hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books and Dani @Literary Lion, here different topics will be discussed.

This weeks topic is ‘Our responsibilities as a book blogger and reader’!

Honestly I don’t think we have responsibilities as book bloggers, besides enjoying ourselves! This is not our job so I would say there are no responsibilities connected to it!

Basically we’re just helping authors and publishers for free haha! I mean we keep talking about books we loving, telling others to read them, so free advertisement for them I guess?!

I do think if a publisher/author send you and ARC, you have the responsibility to read the book and review it! But of course, you do have to give your honest opinion. Not write a rave review, just because they send you the book for free.

I think if you blog for fun, you can talk about whatever book you want, promote whatever book you want. It is your blog, you decided what you show on there.

Maybe not responsibilities, but more like good manners. If you write a ‘negative’ review, don’t tag the author. Be polite to other bloggers, especially when the disagree with you opinion.

Very short discussion this time, I do not have so much to say haha!

What do you think? Do we have responsibilities as book bloggers?

15 thoughts on “Let’s Talk Bookish – Responsibilities as a book blogger!”

  1. I definitely agree that we should focus on having fun first and foremost! I think, ultimately, your blog is yours and you need to decide how you use it. If blogging wasn’t fun then we wouldn’t be doing it. It’s not meant to be like a job when so few of us are paid and even fewer of us are paid well.

    1. I think most of us are actually losing money haha!
      Fun is definitelythe most important! I know I otherwise wouldn´t blog!

  2. You bring up a lot of great points! I think sometimes people see bloggers as “professionals” (and sometimes people think we get paid) when we’re really doing this for fun, so no, we don’t really “owe” anyone anything. Except in the case of ARCs, when yeah, if you requested and accepted one, you should review it (honestly), of course. 🙂

    I love your clarification that it’s more good manners than responsibilities, because yes! That’s a better word for it. Have manners. I totally forgot about the not tagging authors in a negative review, and I still sometimes can’t believe that we have to have this conversation. xD

    1. I think tagging authors in negative reviews is so rude.. I mean they put so much work into it! They don’t want to hear that you did not like it! There are probably loads of readers out there who do!

  3. Hey Evelyn! Great discussion and I agree with everything you said I was thinking more like if we had a responsibility about the content that we produce and the books we support when I chose the topic, but you still raise valid points. It’s a hobby, and honestly, most of it is just good manners, and not necessarily a responsibility 🙂

  4. I agree completely! Well said. We have certain etiquette we should follow like just being kind in general and trying to hold up promises we make, but at the end of the day, like you said, we do this stuff for free to promote books and we don’t necessarily “owe” anyone anything if you ask me. ♥

  5. Pingback: Let’s Talk Bookish – Reader & Blogger Responsibilities – Eternity Books

  6. First, thank you for posting this! I think it’s definitely something bloggers should think about since we’re not writing to just ourselves.

    Second, I agree that accepting advanced copies of books creates a bit of a social contract. We should be responsible and read and review the book since the publishers have kindly offered us the chance to do so, which is a way for them to receive feedback. I always try to give reviews to every ARC I received, even if I have to drag myself through the book to do so.

    Thank you for this post!

    1. Thanks for commenting 🙂
      I always try to review every book I get for review, since indeed they send the book to youb in return for a review!
      Although sometimes it is hard to review a book you DNF’ed or really didn’t like! I do try and point out the parts others might enjoy!

  7. Yep, I agree with everything here. Except I always give a disclaimer that just because I’m sent a book doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the whole thing and review it. I have DNF’d review copies before, and I don’t review them because my review would just be “It was bad. I couldn’t finish more than 50 pages.” And I’d rather not do that (most of the time the book just wasn’t for me, or it was not edited well at all, or it was just downright bad).

    1. I always struggle with what to do with books I got send for review, but end up DNF’ing..
      You kinda promised to write a review, but you did not read the whole thing.. I try to still review them, if I can point out why others might still like it!

  8. I agree. It’s not immediately obvious to me what this question is getting at, so I’d be interested to see other answers. I’d say “responsibilities” are just generally being a decent person: write honest reviews and stick to talking negatively about the book rather than the author. Try to review ARCs if you get them. I can’t really think of much else!

    1. I think being a decent person is the best one! I mean we don’t get paid to do this, so I guess you can just do whatever you want!

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