Why my plans for my old review requests have changed

Lately I had some free time, and started working on something I had been working towards for a bit, and that was putting all my review requests from my book review blog, The Leisure Zone, in order. Here's a link to my previous blog post, talking about it:

Going through my review requests

I indicated that I would be contacting some of these authors. Well, I've changed my mind on that front, and won't be contacting them after all. All these other authors have one author to thank for this. 

Now, lets go back to yesterday evening. I was on my computer, going through the last of my review requests, some of the very oldest ones, dating back to when I first started the blog.

Back then, I would agree to review about any books. I didn't make a preference between genre or anything, and I didn't have my books to review list as organized as I do now. Since the beginning of my book review blog, I've sunk a lot of time into it; working on it and making it better, tweaking it and streamlining it. And I'm quite proud of the blog I created.

Well, one of the books that I had agreed to review, sounded like something I would still like to read; so I thought I would check in with the author. 

BOY WAS THAT A BIG MISTAKE! 

Seems she is in the process of getting ready to re-release the book I asked her about, and is editing it. First off, she wanted me to let her know if it was going to a bad review and just tell her and not post the review. Also, she wanted me to review the copy I had, and not the version she was getting ready to release. If you're confused, join the crowd, because I still am. She didn't seem to understand that I would need to review the version she was going to release, and not the old version that I had. So naturally, I declined to review the book, under these circumstances. Then she proceeded to get pissed at me, and told me she wouldn't recommend my blog. Hey, I didn't ask her to. I was going to discuss it further with her when she blocked my messages and unfriended me. So I blocked her.

But afterwards, I did get concerned that she would badmouth my blog, and harm all the hard work I have put into it. I know first hand what damage unfounded rumors can do. So I felt I needed to get ahead of anything she might do, and put up a post on my facebook timeline talking about it. Then this morning, I decided I would move the whole thing over to a blog post, where I could explain better; and it also went with the previous blog post as well.

So, I'm taking some actions regarding this very unpleasant experience:

• I won't be contacting all those old review requests, as I had thought about doing. I still have them, and they're nicely organized now, and I'm not sure what I'll eventually do with them. Right now I just know that I'm not in the mood to go contacting any authors. I have a nicely filled read and review list to pull books from.
• On The Leisure Zone blog site, I have put up a Review Request Rules for Authors tab, in order to try to protect myself and my review team from such unpleasantness.
• In my blog, The Book News Journal, I'm going to start a series of articles for authors, about contacting book reviewers.

So hopefully these steps will help. 

-- jd --