Frustrated But I Understand Why

As you know if you follow my blog on a regular basis (or even a semi-regular basis), I post book reviews for different publishers and publicity groups.  One of my companies has made a change and it works against me.  Waterbrook Multnomah (part of Random House Books) is the first company I started reviewing for two years ago.  I don't remember exactly how participants were notified, if it was by e-mail or if you had to check a website, but I do remember that it was very easy.  Towards the end of last year, they started making changes to the blogging for books program where you had to go to a website to place your order.  You also had the option of having people rank your reviews, if you chose to do so.  It still wasn't a problem.  Well, a few months ago, because of some people abusing the program, the people in charge decided to make changes again.  Now, in order to expand the number and types of books available to bloggers, you have to have your reviews ranked.  I am suppose to put a link on my blog.  If you like my review (or if you don't like it), you click on the link, enter your e-mail (for identification purposes only) and rank it from half a star to five stars.  Not a bad idea but for those of us who either choose not to have their reviews ranked, do not have enough people reading the blogs, or the readers don't want to participate, it penalizes us and limits the books available.

I understand why these new rules were put into place, but I chose not to let my readers rank my reviews.  Most people aren't interested in going to a third website and take the time to post their rank.  I'm not interested in ranking other peoples and figure no one else is either.  To give people the chance (and to see if I am granted access to more books), I guess I will follow suit and post the links.  So, for future book reviews for Waterbrook Multnomah, you will see a link to review my review.  I hope you will rank them for me.

On the upside, Waterbrook Multnomah is now setting aside free copies of various titles to be given to blog readers each month. Whenever anyone reads and ranks my review, they will automatically be entered to win a free copy of the book that I reviewed. They will notify both me and my blog reader by email if one of my blog readers is chosen as a winner. They will take care of shipping the books.  Cool!!