Book Bloggers – We need you to do this survey!
So! Rebecca from The Book Lady’s Blog is working closely with Brett Sandusky, Digital Marketing Manager at Kaplan Publishing to “help facilitate more effective communication between bloggers and publishers by giving all involved a more concrete idea of what to expect and how to measure and determine successful placement of books on book blogs.” The question of how effective book blogs are in selling books is a question that’s long been asked and to which no answer can be provided. I think we all agree that book bloggers ARE effective, but we need a way to quantify this. This survey should be a first step. Rebecca explains it a little more:
This information will be useful in helping facilitate more effective communication between bloggers and publishers by giving all involved a more concrete idea of what to expect and how to measure and determine successful placement of books on book blogs. We also hope it will encourage book bloggers to be more transparent about their blogs’ statistics and to provide relevant data when communicating with publishers to request or arrange reviews.
Additionally, we have included questions intended to provide feedback to publishers about how they can better meet the needs of the book bloggers they work with.
We recognize and appreciate that traffic is not the only important measure of a blog’s success and that many bloggers define the success of their blogs by the number of comments, depth of discussion, and relationships built. While those elements may be apparent to a publisher visiting a blog, how well-trafficked the blog is may not, and it is an important (and currently missing) piece of the puzzle for publishers who wish to optimize exposure of the books they are promoting.
While this survey is intended to be anonymous in order to encourage optimal participation from bloggers (thereby establishing a larger sample size and more accurate data), we have provided a space at the end for you to include your URL if you wish to be included on a list of bloggers who contributed to the survey when the results are made public.
Your responses to this survey will be kept confidential and will not be connected to your URL. All results will be reported in aggregate terms describing general trends, group means, etc.
Please go here to take the survey.
One thing that Rebecca mentions is, “We also hope it will encourage book bloggers to be more transparent about their blogs’ statistics and to provide relevant data when communicating with publishers to request or arrange reviews.” Well, I’m already happy to provide my stats to publishers, and I do that without prompting when I request a book (which is rare, but has happened a few times this year already). But I don’t tell YOU, my fellow bloggers, my stats. Stats are like your income. It’s uncomfortable to talk about how much money you make, and it’s rude to ask someone how they’re compensated for their work. I wouldn’t be particularly forthcoming about stats even if you asked, but I want to break that right now. I’m especially inclined to break it because I know plenty of bloggers get more hits than I do, so I don’t feel like I’m bragging. If I knew I got the most hits of all the book bloggers, I wouldn’t disclose this information because I believe there’s no benefit in that case. I’m quite sensitive to what I consider being a braggart, and unless there’s a good reason to indicate you’re The Best, unless there’s a reason to make it obvious that no one is as good as you, I don’t see the point. I don’t even really have more than a vague idea of where I stand in comparison to others in regards to stats. My intention of giving you some of my most current stats is hopefully to make you realize you’re doing better than you thought. 
- Average daily hits: 200-400
- Over the past year, I got an average of 10,000 hits a month.
- I generally average 4,000-5,000 unique hits in a 30-day period.
- You can see how many subscribers I have, and yes, I have people who unsubscribe sometimes.
I hope you see that you’re probably doing better than you thought! If my stats totally bum you out, please know that that was not my intention. If you want to know how to increase your stats, I’m happy to give you advice! You know how to reach me.
In 2009, I read What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman for my book club. I haven’t posted my review yet, but I promise, it’s nothing short of gushing!
The Last Place
What the Dead Know
Another Thing To Fall
Hardly Knew Her
Life Sentences
There are so many benefits to the way we’re doing the 
