A General Announcement, Mainly for Publishers and Authors (but the curious are welcome, too)

h1 April 29th, 2008 by Eisha and Jules

Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. He’s sad, because he’s got too many books and not enough time to read them, much less blog about them.Hello, all. We’ve decided to do a little bit of a reshuffle here at 7-Imp. Here’s why.

When we started this blog almost two years ago, we mentioned that we both like to read all kinds of books, from picture books on up to adult novels, and that we intended to talk about all of them, regardless of age level.

Well. A couple of things have changed since then. 1.) We now accept review copies from publishers, something we were hesitant about at first because we didn’t want to be burdened with any actual or perceived obligations to review particular books. And 2.) we’ve expanded our focus to include interviews, illustrator profiles, and a bunch of other features that aren’t necessarily book reviews. So, what difference does that make? It makes us very busy, a lot busier than we ever imagined we’d be, and we’re getting kind of overwhelmed by the stacks and stacks of books that generous review-seekers have sent us. In order to deal with this more efficiently, we’ve decided to amend our blog’s mission statement a little bit.

Ah, yes. Now Mr. Bemis has all the time in the world to read, read, read. Much better.From now on, when it comes to reviewing books, GENERALLY SPEAKING, Jules will be focusing on picture books and middle grade lit, and Eisha will be concentrating on young adult and adult lit. We still reserve the right to read and review whatever we please, and OF COURSE we’ll still collaborate on the occasional co-review, ’cause that’s really why we started this blog in the first place — to talk with each other about books, and bring other interested parties in on the conversation. But in general, if you’re someone who wants to offer us a review copy, that’s the way we’ll break it down.

To recap, here are the responsibilities and major areas of focus:

Jules — Reviewing picture books and middle grade lit; finding illustrators to profile; creative use of multi-colored and multi-sized fonts; organizing giant philanthropic multi-blog movements; and doing all the actual work that makes this blog readable.

Eisha — Reviewing young adult and adult books; contributing the occasional Poetry Friday post; and slacking off.

Hopefully narrowing our focus this way will help us get organized, and cut down on the volume of unsolicited review copies we get that fall outside our scope of interest, and therefore cut down on the guilt factor too.

Thank you for your attention. We now resume our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.

* * * Jules edits to add:

Eisha wrote this and doesn’t give herself enough credit. And playing with font sizes and colors? Who? Me? Nah.





13 comments to “A General Announcement, Mainly for Publishers and Authors (but the curious are welcome, too)”

  1. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one feeling a bit of guilt about review books, and I am not nearly as busy as you ladies. I get review copies that I have no interest in reading, yet am regularly “hounded” about when I’ll be reviewing them on the blog. I guess it’s time for my own review policy post.

    Thanks for providing me some guidance on this.


  2. Tsk. Eisha! No one believes that you slack. Seriously.
    Although I really *must* try that marquee thing Jules does…


  3. GREAT use of photos! LOVE that episode…


  4. Tricia, we’re really not being hounded (though I’m sorry you are). I just feel like having a more fine-tuned focus will help me manage all the review copies (and library copies, ’cause I still review those, too). I’ve been thinking for a while about just focusing on picture books only (I LOVE the illustrator features on Sundays and the new questions-over-breakfast series), but to never review a novel here again might kill me.

    Fortunately, Eisha said sure, that it was okay with her and then even added that she’d take YA. BUT also fortunately, we both agree to a never-say-never philosophy, that if I see some YA I’m dying to read (Octavian, Octavian, Octavian), I’ll do so or we’ll co-review. And if she sees a picture book she just has to talk about, she will.

    I should have also edited to add that I am going to be responsible for the YAs that have been sent to me thus far as review copies. I’m not gonna just ditch them.

    Wait, I forgot to play with font size a bit.

    TadMack, the marquee tag is nefarious. I swore I’d never do it again. And I did.


  5. Oh, and P.S. Tricia: I do think a review copy policy is essential. Not everyone does it, but Eisha and I wrote ours right away, once we started accepting them (though, of course, now it needs updating).


  6. Jules & Eisha,

    Just happy to hear that you ladies aren’t giving up blogging!

    I do love blogging about children’s literature–but it does take a lot of time away from other things that I should attend to. I haven’t done half of the things I had hoped to do for National Poetry Month at Wild Rose Reader this year.

    I don’t know how you ladies manage to keep up with all the features you do at 7-Imp.

    Jules, do you blog while you’re asleep?


  7. I am a slacker. It’s true. And someday Jules, you really need to teach me the marquee tag, too.


  8. Review policies: GOOD!

    I don’t know how you two manage to do so much on your blog. I confess it makes me feel like a bit of a bum by comparison, but that’s okay. I embrace my inner bum. (Not to be confused with embracing someone else’s bum! 🙂

    Love the pics. BEST Twilight Zone episode EVER!
    Ciao,
    Andrea


  9. Thanks, all.

    Eisha, it’s simple: The tag is just “marquee” in brackets (open and then closed, like any tag). If I type it here, then a big white space of nothing-ness will marquee across the screen. Or will it? You’ll know it’s there, but it’ll make you insane, wondering if it really exists. And then you’ll have your own “Twilight Zone” episode on your hands. Anyway,
    marquee tags are annoying but devilishly entertaining if you’re easily-amused like I am.

    And they cause headaches to read, huh? Uh, sorry, everyone.


  10. Jules, I love when you break out that marquee tag.

    And, guys, is that episode of The Twilight Zone not one of your FAVORITE THINGS EVER? Have we discussed this before? I have to watch it, like, once a year on account of the way it combines two of my primary interests, libraries and the end of the world.


  11. Hee! I thought we might have some other fans of “Time Enough at Last” amongst our blog friends and readers. It is pretty much the best thing ever – but the ending! So cruel!


  12. I love Time Enough at Last, and I adore Seven-Imp!


  13. I think this is really wonderful since you always love to share the reading enthusiasm. Through your article I learned a lot of different things in the same book, and I would like to see you pick up something is different from the top selling list also.
    Thank you for the sharing.


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