If you’re looking at this post through a feed, you may want to click through. I’ll wait.
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Now that you’re here, you probably noticed that I’ve rebranded. I am officially retiring Debuts & Reviews and am converting this to a personal blog.
Why the change? Well, simply because I cannot keep up. From day one, running this blog has always been at the cost of my writing. Raven, Katie and Deborah helped with reviews, and Mulluane helped out with debut research while I was at Fantasy Debut, for which I was deeply grateful. But even so, it was a lot more work than you might expect. Publishers don’t always make their debut novels obvious. There isn’t a handy “debut” checkbox I can look for in publisher listings. I could ask for help and I’m sure you would provide it, but to be honest, I need a subject change.
Therefore, this is no longer the blog of a reviewer. This is the blog of a fledgling author. Very fledgling.
What will I do here?
Well … review books, for one. But there will be a lot of differences. I won’t concentrate on debuts anymore, although you probably saw that coming. I’ll review nonfiction as well as fiction. I won’t accept review copies and I’ll alert those publishers that still send me books (I already started this, in fact). I won’t review every book I read. I will probably review come classics that I love, just because I want to talk about them. My reviews will have more of a writerly slant (e.g. what I learned from the book). My review posts will be less frequent, more casual, and will cover more than one book at a time. And I will do video reviews.
(Yes, video reviews. I’ve always wanted to try this. I’m not a narcissist, and I’m not very photogenic, and my voice isn’t great, but when I talk about books and gadgets and music, I want to … well … talk. So I will. I’ll be starting up a YouTube channel for that.)
In order to not confuse people who come here looking for Debuts & Reviews, I’ll keep the D&R logo on the site, along with “former home of” label. Besides, I like it.
What else will I do? Writerly posts, research posts, road trip posts, low sat-fat recipes (we’re following a cholesterol-lowering diet), additional installments of my You Tube Tour of Classical Music, video game posts–and whatever sounds fun.
I will continue to have guests–and I have a bunch scheduled, about one a week.
This is difficult change for me, because I love doing this. However, I’m not saying goodbye, I’m only changing the subject, and that makes this post easier to write.
I do hope you keep coming ‘round!
I’m not too surprised you decided to go this route. I think it’s normal for most reviewers to shift their emphasis once they become authors.
Best of luck, Tia. I’ll look forward to ‘what you learned from the book’ reviews. That’s something I don’t see often.
Thanks, Maria! I’m glad you’ll be sticking around.
I understand why you’re making the switch, but I’m going to miss it. There aren’t many places to learn about debut books and authors.
Thank you, Jessica. I’ll miss doing it as well and to be honest, I have not been doing justice to that particular mission lately, anyway. I miss a lot of debuts. I would love to see a magazine that did nothing but review debut novels. Kind of like a Publishers Weekly for debuts.
You’re going video! Can we video our responses? I think this will be an interesting transition and hopefully allow for lots of deep discussion of classic books etc. I shouldn’t say this as a fiction writer, but I love learning about interesting nonfiction books. (I write this as I have five books about Victorian London on my desk. I’m thinking next year I need to slowly migrate my research library to Goodreads so that I can share my obsession.)
I would love for you to video your responses! I hope to get started on my first video this week. I’m going to review something that’s timely (a great gift) and that I love.
I have a library as well, on ancient Rome. I am just fascinated by that era of history. I have another one on the first Crusade. A brutal time. And I have three of Will Durant’s books.
Good idea about Goodreads!
I’ve mostly lurked but like Maria said I’m not surprised. I like the “what I learned” review idea…it’s something I’ve thought about but haven’t quite pulled off.
Hi, Sherri! I’m glad to have inspired a delurking. I’m thinking about my first “what I learned” review right now.
I can’t say I won’t miss Debuts, but I’m looking forward to some good discussion from the `what I learned reviews,’ and `writerly posts.’ I’m glad this’ll take some pressure off you, and give you more time for writing.
This should be interesting. I’m curious how this change will turn out. {Smile}
Coming to Blogger from LiveJournal, I never got the hang of subject-oriented blogs, myself. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Sometimes you have to make changes that are hard but they need to be made. I wish you the best of luck..
I think your new plan sounds really interesting and I’m looking forward to the non-fiction reviews and the other changes you have planned. Everything in life changes and grows, why shouldn’t your blog?
Good for you. Sob.
Change is good. I, for one, am excited to see what happens in your corner of the woods in the future.
Hi Tia 🙂
I am looking forward to anything you care to write about.
All the best,
Rob
Sounds good to me!