#RandomRambling #BlogTours organised by #Publishers ~ Why don’t they respect bloggers anymore? #bookbloggers #books #amreading

It’s been a very long time since I had a random rambling, but something has been annoying me this last week and I need to talk about it. I’ll probably be on every publisher’s blogger blacklist now but this needs to be said.

I had agreed to be on a blog tour for a publisher and we agreed a content post. I had to provide the content piece which I sent several weeks ago.

Then last week, the publicist for the publisher emailed with the tour banner and a message to the bloggers (with us all CCd into the email instead of BCCd – but that’s a different story) that anyone waiting for content probably wouldn’t get it until the day before their stop because the author is very busy.

Wait now … what?

The author is busy?

And I’m not?

I was livid with the implication that bloggers are just sitting around waiting for someone in the publishing world to send us something to do instead of going to work, looking after our families, pets, dealing with illness, or just life in general while authors have to ‘fit’ us in as and when they can while we do all the hard work to advertise and market their books.

What this has led me to notice is the massive difference in the way freelance blog tour organisers and those who work for publishers treat bloggers.

For example, I’ve just gone through my blog tour folder in my inbox and for one tour being organised by the publisher, I have six emails and very little information needed for the post. I have the content, three banners (as there were mistakes on two of them), and nothing else. No book cover, no author bio, no blurb, nothing else … and all this for a tour that’s next week.

I’m expected to spend more time sourcing this information online whereas the freelancers I join tours for have sent one email for each tour which includes a media kit – cover image, author image, author bio, blurb, buying links, extra images to use should I want to, a little thank you for taking part, my content piece has my name on it, giveaway details, and the tour banner. And it’s typically sent three weeks before the tour.

I’ve seen one comment today where the publisher-organiser sent a blogger just the banner and her response when asked for the rest of the information was, ‘I didn’t think it would take you long to find it all.’ Well, if it doesn’t take long, why not do it instead of expecting the twenty or so bloggers on the tour to do it individually? Why not make our lives easier seeing as we’re helping you out?

It seems to me that some publisher-organised tours are showing less and less respect to the bloggers taking part, not all, but some, and it’s getting worse.

A few weeks ago, a publisher organiser didn’t get back to me after four or five emails during the week when I had a problem with some content and I had to turn to one of the freelancers I know to help me! It was Saturday morning, she was packing for her holiday but went out of her way to help me as my post was due that day but no one from the publisher had gotten back to me all week!

It’s shocking.

Every day in the blogger groups I belong to, people are upset and have horror stories of their treatment on tours and it is always the publisher run ones.

I personally believe this is because most people who run the publisher’s tours have no idea what it takes to create a blog post (NB: not the Bookouture, Orenda, or Bloodhound teams). The freelancers I work with were all bloggers first, they all understand that a post can take upwards of an hour to prepare, yes, you read that right, an hour! Sending us the information on the day our post is due is not acceptable. Sending us the bare minimum of things to put in the post is not acceptable. Expecting us to do all the sourcing of information is not acceptable.

I for one will not be taking part in tours for certain publishers now, the lack of respect is beyond a joke.

If you don’t know what a blogger actually does, you can read all about it here.

Something needs to change and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, folks.

Happy blogging x