monthly wrap-up and look ahead

I am in such a reading/blogging funk right now.

~ There’s the GDPR thing, of course, but I got it done. Then after the May 25th deadline –  it seems like a string of things designed to irritate bloggers and make us quit has been happening. Blogger no longer emails me blog comment notifications so I don’t know when someone comments on a post unless I check back all the time.

~ And after WEEKS of "please reconfirm your subscription to this newsletter or you will die” notifications – I’m still getting all the newsletters that I didn’t confirm. I was all happy thinking I would finally get off all these lists but nope. What was the point????

~ I also keep getting review & guest post, sponsor post requests from people who clearly haven't read my policy. Like for - sleep aids & car locks O_O. I do respond to legitimate requests but not to those who aren't following my guidelines. And let me tell you - these people are determined. They keep emailing...and emailing...and emailing and they get increasingly demanding and irritated that they didn't hear back from me. I shouldn't have to answer emails for people who didn't take the time to read what I do and don't accept on the blog. I don't have time for that but even deleting them takes time. Do you guys deal with this? What do you do?

~ The usual book conference season drama has started and here comes the ARC selling. It shocks me that people still do this. WE SEE YOU. If you go to a conference – don’t be a dick. Problem solved.

~ Amazon apparently stopped allowing bloggers to post reviews for arc’s on their site. They required you to buy the book from them to leave one so it was a verified purchase review. Personally, this does not affect me. I rarely write reviews there because I’ve had many plagiarized and to me, Amazon is a business site – not a review site - so the requirement doesn't sound entirely far fetched to me. It was supposed to stop fake reviews & scammers so I get it. But I also get, because of Amazon’s algorithms, how this would hurt authors – especially indie and small press who rely on reviews. I guess they reversed it anyway so it doesn't matter.

~ But….that led to discussions about authors and tour groups requiring reviewers to only post 4-5 star reviews and debate as to whether bloggers should be paid for reviews. I’m in the no camp on that but I was surprised to see how many bloggers are for it now.

how is book blogging becoming so complicated??? Does it even matter anymore?

*has existential blogging crisis* lol

Then of course we have #cockygate – a romance author is trying to trademark the word cocky – go look up the hashtag on twitter if you haven’t heard about it. But refer to above – don’t be a dick.

So basically – drama and I’m just not in the mood for it right now and it made me cranky so I retreated to my other favorite hobby – gardening. It rained a lot but that’s kind of good for establishing new plants so it was worth the trade off to plant flowers in between rain bands. I also have quite a few Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars munching away on my fennel. They just went to the chrysalis stage so I hope to have butterflies in a few weeks!





And of course, what’s a holiday if I don’t do something embarrassing to Fonzi

Peace, Love & Fonzi

May reading and the June TBR:

I read 16 books in May – The Epic Crush of Genie Lo was my favorite.

I’ve read 77 books so far this year. My goal is 100 so whoop!

So that's it for me....just a lot of whining lol I've learned to step away and take a break when I'm feeling like this so I may or may not have posts for next week but I have been keeping up with visiting blogs.