I have had two awkward experiences. I don’t know if I would calling them horror stories but they still were odd. One time I co-hosted a blog hop with another blogger. It ended up starting when I went on vacation in Yellowstone. I had no idea that Yellowstone wasn’t going to have internet. I did contact the blogger and said I wouldn’t be able to edit the hop list’s links till a day after the hop started as soon as I discovered that this would be the case. The blogger seemed ticked about it, but didn’t offer to help in anyway. I came back from Yellowstone and started setting up the list. I had several emails from the co-blogger who was really angry with me despite the fact I had reached out to them. I just didn’t really get into it with them and let the hop continue on. It was still successful.
Another time.. I tried to join up with local bloggers in real life. We met up and while it wasn’t bad .. I could tell none of my ideas were being listened to. The two bloggers I met up with already knew each other and were really only listening to themselves with the ideas they already had. I went ahead and stepped down from continuing to help support the event. I later also learned that both are marketers for publishers and authors so they really weren’t interested in bloggers but the authors. They wanted to attract business for themselves. So the whole blogger month we had set up was really only about authors and they even had the NERVE to email me and tell me my comments and my post that month wasn’t what they were looking for because I wasn’t trying to include authors. I am not out to meet authors but readers and bloggers. I wasn't wording my comments on their blog correctly. Needless to say… I didn’t respond to that email and I just completely left that whole thing all together. Disaster. I don't bother to try to meet up locally anymore.
What about you??? Any stories you want to share?? I learned a few lessons from these experiences and I suppose that is what life is all about.
Oh I hope you don't let it turn you off from meeting bloggers in real live anymore. There are some great bloggers out there. One of my good IRL friends started as a buddy blogger. :D
ReplyDeleteI did try to meet more actually. I met some at a movie that was a screening for a YA book. I messaged all the bloggers in my area and told them about it. These bloggers were nice but nothing really ever came out of it.
DeleteOuch, sounds like some bad experiences! Sorry to hear about what you've gone threw.
ReplyDeleteI really don't have any horror stories to share. I've just had a few trolls posting an odd comment or two on my blog that had nothing to do with what my posts was even about... Essentially nothing to write home as a horror story.
LOL... I have had a few of those. I just deleted them. So odd to get those comments.
DeleteThe only time I've ever met other blogger IRL has been at BEA. Don't know that I'd want to meet any locally, because I think it would be awkward if we didn't get along, then ran into each other at the store or something. I've had a couple of weird comments, but I simply deleted them and moved on.
ReplyDeleteI did see one of the bloggers mentioned later. They didn't recognize me or even look at me. Thank the Lord! I think BEA would be totally different when it comes to meeting bloggers. You aren't really setting up an event or trying to get a project together ... really you are just all having fun together. I would really like to go one year.
DeleteWow it's disappointing to read when bloggers are rude (though I will remember that the majority of bloggers are awesome!) It's too bad you had these experiences Angie. I haven't been involved in any experiences myself, but I hope that if I am I can handle it as classy as you did!
ReplyDeleteI agree... most bloggers have been fun and out going! I did try to be classy about both situations. I didn't run out and rant about it on the internet. I didn't fight back with the bloggers. I do think the blogger with the giveaway was really upset that I didn't hold up my end of the deal. I did feel bad... but did the best I could in the situation. I handled it the only way I knew how and apologized for hurting the integrity of the giveaway. Though I noticed in other giveaways that were hosted by the blogger the lists weren't updated. Sooo... I don't know. I really just did the best I could.
DeleteWow, you've met some Bloggers Behaving Badly! I've been very lucky so far with meeting bloggers in real life, but there's bound to be some bad apples out there. :(
ReplyDeleteYeah... I am going to just skip trying to meet up with local bloggers. It just doesn't seem like it's for me. Now Utah... there is a state with great bloggers. I lived there once and so I participate in Utah Book Blogging month and have tons of fun there!
DeleteWow! So I've only been blogging a little over a year and haven't run into anything like that yet. The only thing that pops in my head is that I was doing blog tours for a blog tour co. and out of the blue I got a ranting email about how it's necessary to give notice if you can't post for the tours, and authors put in a lot of hard work so we owe them, and how dare we receive a free book and not review. While I completely understood the frustration and even agreed with most of what the email said, I had been on time and posted for every tour I scheduled so the one line at the bottom of the email that said 'oh for those of you that did all these things, you really know what it's about and thank you' just didn't do it for me. I never should've received the email in the first place so I asked to be removed from the list. I don't take too kindly to people griping at me for something I haven't done.
ReplyDeleteI hate that you had such an awkward experience meeting the local bloggers. Sounds like they should have been a little more up front about what they were after. IAlso, if someone is helping me with a project and run into trouble, you better believe I'll do my best to help. We all get into binds we can't control. Jaclyn @ JC's Book Haven.
OMG!! Wow... they sent out a mass email about those who weren't doing what they were supposed to!! I mean... wow. It's like a side note for those who you doing a good job but let's make a bigger deal out of those who are participating who aren't doing what they're suppose to do.
DeleteYeah... you know I was really surprised about that whole giveaway hop. I mean... they didn't offer to help, nor did I ask. But the way they responded I knew that they weren't wanting to help me at all. So I didn't ask. It's like they thought somehow a miracle would happen and Yellowstone would get free wifi! Let that be a warning to all... no internet there. The was some cell service in some places but there was no way I was going to be able to edit a linky before hand. I did email all the participants before I went to Yellowstone for their link to add... but no one really responded to that email. I tried everything!
I know how hard it can be to get people to respond. I have been lucky enough to only work with people that I was helping out so if they don't help it's actually hurting them. I hate that you've run into that situation though.
DeleteWow. Not nice. :( I hate it when people/bloggers/whoever act like they want you around but then cut you out! It's really frustrating. I haven't had too many "horror" experiences, except for blogging about my writing projects and having a reader tell me everything that was wrong with them and not to bother writing. o.O I was so shocked! I mean, who does that?!
ReplyDeleteWHAT! OK now that is bad. That's like writing a review and someone telling you all the mistakes in it and you might as well not be a reviewer anymore. Yeah um.. thanks. People should know you were asking more for critiquing then criticism. I think sometimes people forget the difference between those two things.
DeleteThose sound like Horror Stories to me! You were just gone a day for the blog hop right? Even if you weren't, you contacted them. You would think they would be more helpful or at least okay with it. I mean what if it happened to them? Stuff comes up and you can't do anything about it. I'm happy that the hop went so well!
ReplyDeleteJoining up with bloggers sounded like such a great idea a minute ago... Maybe they assumed since they already knew each other that they were going to talk about best ways to market??? I don't know about them but I thought book blogs were for fun. I mean you do some blog tours and read some ARCs but it should be focused on books and ideas - not on authors.
I've only had one story where I read a book for a blog tour but backed out because I really didn't enjoy the book and then the author wrote to me saying they didn't mind if I had negative feedback she would still like a review but I really didn't want to because I couldn't begin with that book... So it was awkward but not that big of a deal I guess.
I know... I don't know what they thought I was going to do. Of course I like authors... and I was commenting on the author posts when they went up during the Blogger month. Soooo I don't know. I was interacting with everyone... I just didn't mention authors in my bio I guess. Funny thing is neither of those bloggers blog about books anymore. They have sites for their marketing/advertising. I wish I had know they knew each other and were already friends before I went. I thought the three of us were all new to each other and were starting it all on our own.
ReplyDeleteThat first one would have annoyed me so much. At least you gave them warning! And if they cohosting with you, they should take half the responsibility and be willing to work with you.
ReplyDeleteThat second one sounds so awkward. And they really should have made their expectations/demands clear from the beginning ><
I know! I wish they would've told me they were into the marketing world. It really wasn't fair to us bloggers who were participating. Using that blogging month for their networking purposes was fine but they shouldn't have pushed that on those who didn't want to do it. Still irks me.
DeleteIt was funny about the giveaway... I guess they thought I was magically going to get internet and then when I came back was all like.. you should've given me your password and blah blah (to the linky). Well... they never offered to help, just left it in my hands. So after the fact THEN they start acting like they were willing to help. Hummmm...
Oh my. I think both of these are pretty bad, Angie. It's no fun to meet up with people and realize you're nothing than a marketing tool.
ReplyDeleteAnd the second one is really not your fault at all! You realized before you left for vacation that you wouldn't have internet connection and let the other blogger know in advance. There really wasn't anything else you could do!
I had an internet connection problem last summer when I was on vacation for two weeks. I had specifically searched for an apartment with high-speed internet connection, and I had some blogtours scheduled and no way to let anybody know.
I ended up spending some money using my 3G so I could make sure it worked though, but one blog-post I had scheduled in advance didn't post :( I was forgiven when I wrote the host the same day to let her know I had a glitch though.
Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bokviews
I thought about using my cell phone.. but in Yellowstone you really don't have cell phone service and certainly not 3G. I would've had to go through 80 different people who signed up and go to their blog to find the link to the giveaway. A lot didn't actually participate so I had to go through the linky and delete all the blogs that didn't participate and just linked up so people would go to their blogs. It would've been awful to do from a phone.
DeleteI thought of everything I could to get that giveaway hop set up. I think that's nice that the host worked with you during your tours. That blogger who co-hosted with me just didn't want to do any work. They just put their name out there, which yes did get a lot of people to sign up for the hop and for that I am grateful .
As you know, I only have experienced blogging bloopers but horrors such as you mentioned above, I haven't.
ReplyDeleteI remembered you sharing both these stories to me months ago and I still feel you, Angie. All the things that have happened weren't your fault. You're not a god where you can just snap your fingers and make everything perfect. Along the way, some things would happen on their own with no ways for you to do about it.
As I read your experiences, I am even more fearful to host events that needs to be collaborated with other bloggers you know. I am afraid of messing up and getting blamed. I am also afraid for the other bloggers to mess up and then I end up blaming them. That's really scary!
Funny think is I pretty much copy and pasted what I wrote on your comment! HA! I will never co-host an event again. Well maybe it's just that this blogger is so big on their hops that they are more um... uppity then it would be if you were with a smaller blogger. Say you and I. They co-host with people all the time I noticed and no one updated the linky. I think maybe someone just panicked at the last minute when there was nothing to panic about.
DeleteI've met several other book bloggers in real life and most of my expereinces have been great! Karen (Teamsheltie is so sweet), Jen AtRandom is such a lovely person, heck and even more - I met a ton of awesome bloggers at BEA and there are some here locally I've met as well that are such dears. I think you just had a really unfortunate experience but I hope it doesn't turn you off meeting others for good! Heck I now consider some bloggers that are cross country some of my besties. Which is weird I know since I"ll like never be their maid of honor or get to go to a baby shower or whatever, but these are the people I talk to every day that I just click with. So hopefully you wouldn't ever pass up an opportunity to meet your blogger book soul mate whoever that is Lol. Ok I'm prattling on. If I end up in CO for some reason you better not refuse to meet me for crumpets and tea!
ReplyDeleteI don't know about meeting local bloggers anymore. I know now all the threads in the comments are messed up now so you probably didn't see but I did try to meet up with other ones. One time i found out about an early movie screening and tried to tell the bloggers in the area about it. A couple went and I met them there but nothing came out of it. I used to know of several bloggers in the area and then I quit trying to keep track of them. There was another one here in the same town as me that I saw I twitter had a little book club. I reached out to them to join but never heard anything. Now UTAH on the other hand has an amazing book community and since I lived there for a little while (because of military) I participate in the Utah book blogger month. So fun!
ReplyDelete