Meryl's Notes Blog

Yesterday, I talked about bloggers receiving free stuff or posting advertisements. I left out another discussion on this topic — when publishers send books, videos and other odds and ends for review without asking.

I received a book about adopting and caring for a cat. Have I ever talked about cats other than the time when everyone was putting cat heads on Dvorak and a comic for Geeks with Cats. Once in a while, I’ll review something that comes to me without notification, but most of the time I don’t because it’s not a topic I cover or it’s not closed-captioned. But I’ll review everything I ask for.

Publishers send things to everyone on their list in hopes that the recipients will review them because it’s already in their hands. Reviewers don’t have a lot of time to kill, so we need to select the things that would interest the audience. We don’t want to waste your time. Sure, we could post a review on Amazon and B&N, but I won’t read something that doesn’t interest me. Plenty of books sit on shelves waiting for my attention so I’d rather read those.

I’m lucky that I receive enough books to that I can’t touch the ones gathering dust on their bookshelves. But I also do abstracts for GetAbstract, not just book reviews. I’ve also gotten into game reviews since joining Big Fish Games — the only time I ever play electronic games. Gotta be careful not to take on too many games or else no work gets done. What I like about Big Fish is its offerings contain the kinds of stuff I like to play.