Technology has changed a lot of things, and the world of publishing is no exception. Holly, the author of A BLUE SO DARK and PLAYING HURT, has gotten very good very quickly at navigating this new world.
Right before I got my undergraduate degree, I remember a girl in one of my lit classes asking the prof, “How do you know what new stuff is good to read? Where do you start?”
What she was saying was that she’d been buried in her classroom reading so long—so inundated with thick classics—that she was completely out of the loop, as far as contemporary lit was concerned.
She got snickered at, though—because at that time, in my hometown of Springfield, MO, she had plenty of bookstores where she could browse and become reacquainted with contemporary writers.
Now, though? My hometown has no independent bookstores. Not one. Recently, my favorite used store closed. The Borders Express in the mall shut down around the holidays, and the larger Borders is in the process of shutting its doors, too.
The loss means the art of bookstore browsing is dying—and not just in my hometown. Walking aisles and pulling spines is no longer something you can do on lunch hours or Saturdays…it’s something, quite frankly, you do online.
And nothing—NOTHING has helped introduce readers to new authors quite like book bloggers. Instead of having a bookseller who can recommend titles, we now have bloggers.
Bloggers have been instrumental in connecting my books with the right readers. They’ve been incredible to me, shouting my praises from Twitter, using their own money to pass along copies of my books in tours.
I know exactly how much work bloggers have put into helping to promote my books—and I’m eternally, eternally grateful…
Holly
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