Review books and what do you do when you don't want to review them...

[emperatrix]

Hi all,

I'm in something of a bind... about a year ago, a certain publisher's marketing team contacted me regarding a book for review. It was a book that sounded like something I would enjoy, so I accepted the offer and gave them my address. My blog isn't necessarily an upcoming book review blog, it's more of a personal book blog, but suddenly they just started sending me books without warning. While these are all bestsellers, most of them are not at all the kind of literature I'm interested in reading and don't really fit the personal aspect of my blog. I kind of have to wonder why they thought I would connect with these books.

So my question is... what do you do when you receive unsolicited books that you don't want to read/review? Do you return these? Give them away? I've been collecting them to donate to my local public library, but I'm not sure how to go about it if they keep sending books.

Any suggestions?

[Antonia Everdeen]

I usually try to give them to people who would review them. Or donate them to public libraries. I'm of the opinion that all books, no matter how good or bad they are, need to be reviewed by some people. Because the author(s) need these reviews. So as they can know what people think of their writing, their plots, the depth of their characters and so on. Reviews, both appraising and disappointing, count. These are part of a book too. Well, many readers usually choose a book merely by the reviews on it.

So, I think that when someone doesn't want to review/read, he/she needs to find someone else who WILL review/read the book. We owe it to the authors and to the whole book community.

[C. Lee McKenzie]

Donating is great, but it seems as if you've signed up for something that doesn't serve you or your blog. I'd stop the books from coming. Have you contacted the publisher? There must be a contact link on their website that would at least put you in touch with someone clerical who could connect you with the marketing team.

If that fails I'd go with the unopened/refused option. Good luck.