The emails saying we'd love to but we simply can't right now. The ability to call everyone fairly, get everything out in a timely manner. The hideous confessions that you simply can't break it, it's not for you. The over committingleading to distracted days and sleepless nights. The do I don't I debate over negative reviews. The multitude of laundry you haven't time to cope with. The neglected friends and family who haven't seen you get out from behind a laptop for months. The holidays' sacrificed for Convention attendance. The sleep sacrificed at the conventions. The nail biting anxiety over interview questions. The deciding between one five hundred pager you know you'll love or two, two hundred page teen romances you can complete quickly. The possibility that all this process may suffer no work on anything when it comes right down to it. The more terrifying possibility that it might. The realisation this is virtually a good time job and it really costs you money sooner than earning an income. So why do I do it? Why do I review?My name's Adele and I can't stop reading. I can't go anywhere without a deal and usually a cover up book. I get one in my bag, several on my phone, more on my laptop. I have over a yard in the family and it breaks my eye to conceive of the hundreds I have parted with over the years. I go up early for meetings so I can sneak in a few minutes reading. I love train journeys because of the uninterrupted hours with a book. I get a pot at the bedside, a mountain on my desk and always three on the go at once. Sometimes I get one a day, sometimes more, sometimes just one a week, but I am always reading. If I'm between books, I mean, I've just finished my main read, but I yet possess my 'bedtime read' and my 'other mood'read on the go, I scarcely want to blame another one to send to for main. When I started Un:Bound, a little over two days ago (blog years are like dog years but multiply by ten) it didn't actually make a name. There was no logo, no team, just me rambling to myself because I needed to talk about books. The internet allowed me to talking about the books I love as often and as much as I liked. Gradually I discovered there were other people doing the same. A whole community, several really. Those communities have grown in the time I've been doing this. Always in flux. People I talked to when I first started, the mass who supported my efforts, aren't all about any more. Many more have linked up. Un:Bound has grown. We take a logo and a team. An awesome team. We do audio and television and have columns on composition and guest posts and get involved in events and rant about the masses whose writing we adore. Still, at our core are the reviews. At our core it will ever be near the reviews. My name's Adele and I can't stop telling people about books. I pass books to friends to try, 'just try, I won't be offended if it's not for you but there is something about his humour that will appeal I think'. I urge them to strangers in bookshops, 'oh if she enjoyed that, then get her this she'll know it, really', I urge them to people I will never meet, on the internet 'Yay for gun toting chicks who can laugh in the subject of terrible death after wiping puke from their mouth'. We all get our reasons for book blogging, and those have been debated elsewhere, but I'd care to mean that most of us are doing this for the like reason I'd care to think most writers write. We can't not. Whether we do it for months or years, for any event we stop, for a piece we are compelled to say and to share. For a while we see our enthusiasm and love for books and authors to the world wide web. For a piece we eat, sleep and breathe reviewing. For a bit we let the written word consume us, take over our lives. For a piece we are reviewers. For a piece we are book bloggers. All those things I mentioned? The stress, the anxiety, the control to other areas of your life? It's all worth it. Maybe it won't ever be. Maybe one day I will leave Un:Bound in someone else's hands or it'll wrap up entirely. Right now though? It's all worth it. I think it will be worth it for a while. Thank you so very often for bringing your site to the table, Adele! In typeface you didn't notice, she is stationed out of the UK. Be certain to end by Un:Bound and say hello. She, along with the team, have reviewed a broad assortment of books that may blow your fancy.And I think I should have said at the use of this that reviews are of flow important to us as publishers to recognize that our show is being well-received by our target audience. Of course we would know to see 4 and 5 star reviews constantly, but we see that our books aren't for everyone. Honest, unbiased reviews are all that we can ask of any book reader/reviewer/blurber.So, why do you review? Do you make a blog that you like to transmit them at (we would know to put your connection to the good in our 'Thank you for your back' set of links)? How consistent are you at reviewing the books that you say and do you point your titles to others outside of your 'reviewspace'? For your web link and input we would care to take you a script to review, winners will be pulled randomly for the first five reviewers. Be trusted to get it in by Monday, October 4!
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