BBAW: Community

This is basically going to be a big THANK YOU to some the bloggers who have inspired me, influenced me, helped me and continue to inform me:

The Bloggers Who Inspired Me:
For many years I kept a book journal. It started out as a list of books that I wanted to read in a series or; the titles of books in an author's oeuvre. The lists eventually evolved into a word doc journal running over a hundred pages long, containing everything from my thoughts on a a title, a related movie, photos, recipes, charts... I was encouraged by Ann Kingman at Books on the Nightstand to try and migrate the entries online. I approached a couple technical savvy people who looked the material over and said the easiest thing to do would be to just start blogging. My original vision of having an interactive web-site was replaced with the more pragmatic goal of simply blogging. Rebecca Schinksy (BookLadysBlog) was very supportive from the first days of my appearance on twitter by offering to have me post audiobook reviews on her site and, then cheerleading me in the early days of blogging. I would also me remiss if I didn't mention Jason G (Brain Candy Book Reviews) for being one of my earliest online friends and champions.


The Bloggers Who Have Influenced Me:
In the beginning, I was not aware of the number of audiobook bloggers out there, so I was visiting and/or following a lot of print book bloggers. I didn't comment very often so much as I caught a feel for the way bloggers' relationships worked with publishers and, how book were promoted and trended. Combining that with what I knew/experienced in the publishing industry opened a whole new dimension to the concept of blogging and put a new square in my mental flow cart of the publishing industry as a whole. Social media, especially the twitter platform, became a bigger factor in my approach as well. Books on the Nightstand, BookLadysBlog and S. Krishna's Books were and still are influential blogs in my google reader.


The Bloggers Who Have Helped Me:
Sometimes it's a technical question, sometimes it's help facilitating an idea or a meme, sometimes it's a general question and, sometimes it's even "just" moral support. I could spend hours and spill a lot of ink for each of the bloggers who have made me feel welcome in the blogging community. These are just a few:


Jennifer C. (literatehousewife): From twitter convos about The Thousand Autumns of Jacob deZoet to creating the Bond Girls Posse (Shaken, NotStirred) to convos about our kids and, being Good Little Catholic Girls, Jennifer C. has been simply great. Cannot stress that last word enough.

Jennifer K. (DevourerofBooks): A print book blogger who always has a project or two going with Nicole B. (Linus's Blanket) also regularly features and promotes audiobooks (Audiobook Week, Sound Bytes.) Her professional approach and amazing ability to wring 50 hours of work out of a twenty-four hour day is impressive.

Jennifer L. (Jenn's Bookshelves): A print book blogger who promotes indie Bookstores (#indieThursday) and regularly features audiobook reviews, Jennifer L. has a upcoming feature for the month of October that I find pretty exciting: Murder, Monsters, Mayhem (#MX3.) Features like this (see also DevourerofBook's Audiobook Week and Sheila at Book Journey's Where Are You Reading? Challenge) force me to step up as a blogger. I like that.

Candace L. (BethFishReads): A professional editor who also blogs about books and audiobooks, Candace L. also runs an imprint awareness feature, Weekend Cooking feature and the What's in a Name? Challenge too. Also, don't get her started about mid-century feminism :-)


The Bloggers Who Continue to Inform Me:
In the past few months, the audiobook blogging community has been becoming more sharply into focus for me. Part of the awareness is a result of my job whose many disparate responsibilities includes sending out review copies from the-company-I work-for to various listener advisory services, bloggers included. I've been introduced to some great audiobook blogs/blogs that feature audiobooks, including, but not not limited to, John and Maggie True (audiobookfans.com) and Bob Reiss (guildedearlobe.com). Their love of audiobooks, thoughfulness and honesty in reviewing are obvious. I love it when they recommend a Blackstone Audio back to me, but no less when they aren't so happy with a title I've sent them or; when the raves are for another audiobook publisher's title(s). Some seriously good stuff :-)

I am truly grateful to all the bloggers out there who take the time to write a thought or two about the books they love (or hate) and promote wordsmithing as a whole. As I continue to try and find my blogging voice, their intelligence and passion for the published word continues to humble and amaze me.