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Edelweiss 101: A Guide for New Users

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I’m a huge fan of Edelweiss. I’ve talked it up at a couple of library conferences, telling attendees that it’s a one-stop shop for learning all about the books coming out that they should have on their radars. I used it regularly not only for features here at Stacked, but it’s where I acquire some of my digital review copies of forthcoming titles.

Something I regularly hear, though, is that Edelweiss is not easy to use and for those who haven’t been playing with it for a while, it can be extremely difficult to navigate. It’s not intuitive. So I thought because it’s a tool I find so useful and valuable not only in blogging but in librarianship, I’d offer up a quick and dirty how-to to Edelweiss. This is geared toward US librarians, educators, and bloggers who aren’t otherwise familiar with the site and its interface, and I know for sure I’ll miss some key or valuable features. Things might vary depending on what country you’re in, which is why I note it’s geared toward those in the US (I think most things should be the same if you’re in Canada, but I can’t tell you for certain). This is meant to be a beginner’s guide, and it’s meant to help make some of those really frustrating elements of the site easier to work through.

 

stackedbooks.org (2)

 

 

What IS Edelweiss?


First, if you haven’t used it or have only heard of it in passing, you might not even know what Edelweiss is or where to find it.

Edelweiss is a one-stop shop for publishers to share their seasonal catalogs. It’s not comprehensive, as it’s opt-in by the publishers. But it offers the biggest place to peruse numerous catalogs; it saves you from having to track down each publisher’s website then navigate their websites to find their most recent catalog. Many publishers not only have the current season up, but they have loads of former seasons still available and many of them will share specialty catalogs as well. Scholastic, for example, will offer not only the Fall 2014 catalog, but they’ll also have a catalog of titles they spoke specifically about during one of their educator/librarian webinars, making it easy to see only the books that were talked about.

That’s the front page of Edelweiss when you’re not logged in with your own account. It’s got the publishers listed on the left-hand sidebar, and down the center are the most recently added catalogs. Even if you’re not logged in, you should be able to access many — if not all — of the catalogs when you click on a publisher’s name. I’m logged out, and I clicked on the ABRAMS catalog:
All of their listings are along the left-hand sidebar, and down the center are the most recent catalogs they’ve added to Edelweiss.
When you pick a catalog to view — I chose the Spring 2014 Children’s catalog — this is what the screen will look like. There are 79 entries for this particular catalog, but the entries include all sorts of products that ABRAMS made available this spring. The top entry, for The Night Gardener, is for that specific book and you can see all kinds of information about it, including the ISBN, publication date, page count, what the first print run will be, the cover, and so forth. Not all publishers furnish all of this information; it’s entirely dependent upon the publisher. The second entry for this catalog is for the 12-copy floor display of the same book. This is meant for book sellers, rather than for librarians or educators, so it might not be super useful information.
Digging Deeper Into Catalog Entries
 
I’m still logged out of Edelweiss, but even logged out, there’s a ton of information that can be pulled from the individual catalog entries. Using the same ABRAMS Spring 2014 Children’s catalog from above, I went and clicked on the title The Night Gardner.
Where looking at the entire catalog as a list gives you some basics about upcoming titles, clicking on the individual entries will give you far more in-depth information. This particular title doesn’t have as much information in it as others do, but it gives you a summary, a biography of the author, and it lists the first book in the series as a comparable title. You can also see the reviews that the book’s garnered, as well as blurbs that might have been given for the title.
The information presented varies depending upon the book and depending upon the publisher. Some offer far more information and some offer even less. Here’s a title that gives a ton of great information about the book:
The entry for Melissa Marr’s Made for You, out in September, has a really filled-out entry. You not only have the basics, but you also have the marketing plan laid out on the right-hand side. For a general reader or blogger, this might not be interesting. But what it can be valuable for — what I’ve told people to use it for — is to see where the book, or other books, might pop up. You might see website names that there will be promotions pitched to and that can be useful for sussing out where people are learning about books more broadly (and it lets you stay ahead of the curve on those things). Made for You doesn’t list any specific sites except for Epic Reads, which is Harper’s promotional site, but it does tell you that there will be some significant marketing for this title, suggesting teen and non-teen readers will likely see something for this book, especially around Halloween. The 150K first printing, which you can see in the top box, tells you it’s one of the lead titles in the Fall.
The comp titles for this entry are all Marr’s previous titles. This isn’t particularly useful when you know the author’s other works, but it can be useful to know it’s going to be fairly similar to her prior books and it can be useful to know in the event you’ve missed an older title.

There are some publishers which offer really great comp titles in their entries that can be extremely useful for figuring out what a book might be about or who that book might appeal to.

For Brenna Yovanoff’s Fiendish, the comp titles are really great. You not only get a look at her own titles, but you also see that Fiendish is comparable to Kendare Blake’s books, Tom McNeal’s, Jonathan Maberry’s, and Holly Black’s. They’re not meant to be read alikes, but rather, they’re meant to sort of situate the book within a genre or a style. Sometimes they work as read alikes, but that’s not the purpose of comps.
Limitations of Using Edelweiss Without an Account
 
While you can pull a lot of information out of Edelweiss without an account, you’re also limited in what you can do. For one thing, there’s not a good search interface. You can’t, from the front page, look up books well. Even within catalog, it’s not easy to search through titles. So if you wanted to pull up information for a book, you’d have to dig around for it.
If you’re not logged into Edelweiss, you also have no access to digital ARCs, either. You have no idea whether a title is available for request because the buttons just don’t exist at all.
You don’t have the capability of looking up buzzing titles. In fact, the way the home page of Edelweiss looks when you’re logged in as opposed to using outside your account is substantially different. This is my homepage while logged in:
I’m able to pick up where I may have last been looking (the center column tells me the last catalogs I looked at), and I’m able to simple do and peruse a lot more.
Signing Up for Edelweiss
 
It’s easy to sign up for Edelweiss and have access to a lot more information. Signing up does not guarantee you anything — you might never be given access to digital ARCs, for example, which I’ll get to in a minute — but you will be able to do more advanced searching and other things.
 
To sign up for an account, click on “Register” in the top right-hand corner. The form looks like this:
                           

Fill this out as best you can, with as much information as possible. Include all relevant URLs and be as specific as possible about what your role within an organization is. If you’re a blogger and a librarian, I’d put librarian down as your key role, followed by your blogging information under the “User Profile Information.”

You’ll get a confirmation email minutes after you agree to the terms, and then you can log in to the site. Now your screen looks different and you can see so much more.

Digital Review Copies


The biggest advantage for logging in at this point is probably digital ARC access. But just because you have access doesn’t mean that publishers are going to grant you copies. There are limits in distribution and choices aren’t always clear-cut. Sometimes, you’ll find you have access without having to ask for a book, and other times, you’ll see that there isn’t even a button to request a digital ARC. Still other times, you’ll request a title and wait for a couple of weeks before you find out whether your request was accepted or rejected.

When you’re perusing a catalog and logged in, oftentimes, you’ll see a button that there’s a digital copy available right in the catalog itself.

 

I can request this particular digital ARC right from the catalog Fall 2014 Penguin Children’s catalog. When I click on the “Request” button, this is the box that pops up:
The first time you request a title, you’ll be asked to describe your role. This is going to stay attached to your requests every time you put one in, unless you choose to edit them each and every time. Be specific in your role — mine says I’m a YA librarian, as well as a book blogger. I listed where I blog, since that tells the person going through all of the requests exactly where I’m writing, rather than just saying that I have a blog. It’s one way to differentiate yourself and it’s giving a better idea of who you are. You can include stats or any other information, but I choose not to furnish that information because it’s not something I pass along for free.
That second box, where you can give a specific reason for your request, is really important. This is a box I make sure I fill out each time I request. In it, I reiterate I’m a blogger and where, and I note that I’m requesting it for potential coverage at either site. I don’t promise a review or any response; I note that there’s the potential for it.
I request very few digital ARCs, so I don’t feel bad about saying that by requesting, I may not cover it. In many cases, I’ve also used this box to express an interest in a particular digital ARC because I’ve read the author’s prior work or I saw it in a promotion somewhere and it piqued my interest. Fill this out each and every time to increase your chances of having your request approved. Even if it doesn’t grant you a specific ARC at times, it’s important for you to do because it reminds you why you’re interested. It’s a reminder of the role YOU play.
 
There’s no timeline for when requests are approved or denied. It can be hours, it can be days, it can be weeks. Those will come through the email you gave Edelweiss when you signed up. But if you happen to miss the communication, there is a way to check out it.
Discovering available digital ARCs isn’t limited to catalog perusal. There’s an entire tab on the Edelweiss website devoted to ARCs and to ARC organization. You’re able to search it, narrow down your interests, and you’re able to submit reviews or other information as you choose.
When you go back to the Edelweiss homepage, click on the  “Review Copies” tab and this is what you’ll see:
Along the left-hand sidebar, you can narrow down your search through the available digital ARCs by age category, subject, publisher imprint, publication date, or publisher. When I pulled up this screen, I had 3,370 digital ARCs I could peruse, so narrowing down to exactly what interests me would be helpful. If there’s a specific title I’m interested in, the search box right above the first available title is useful.
When you look at the right-hand side of this screen, you can see that above the “Request Digital RC” there’s a note that lists when the title was added. This is useful if you check back every few days. You’ll know exactly what’s new. You can also see there are two different colored buttons on my screen: the blue one notes I can request the ARC and the green one, for the title below, means I can just download it. I’m “white listed” for Random House Children’s titles, meaning anything they put up is available for me to download without asking. Different publishers have different rules for who and how they choose people to put on their white list. I know some, like Macmillan, let librarians on their white lists and tell you how to go about it.
The next little tab to know about within the Review Copies tab is where those ARCs are held and where you can check the status of titles you’ve requested.
You can see I clicked over to the “Requests” tab which is on the second row of tabs that stretch across the top of the screen. In there, I can see the status of everything I’ve requested. The top title, The Walled City, I haven’t yet heard back about, which is why it’s a blue question mark under “status.” I sent the request about a week ago. Beside the status, you can see when the title is downloadable until and when I downloaded it. (And funny, as soon as I began writing this section of the post, I got an email saying I’d been approved for this title).
The second two titles you can see were both approved and had both been downloaded. If I had an issue with either of them, the little blue “Message” link beneath them would allow me to be in touch with someone about those issues.
The bottom title, A Time to Dance, shows that I was approved, but that it expired and I never downloaded it. This happens — I think this particular title is one I requested close to when it would expire, and since I use a Nook to read and downloading/transferring can be cumbersome, I didn’t act on it fast enough. It’s not the end of the world, but I do dislike seeing that I never downloaded it when I’d been able to.
You’ll be emailed when your request has been answered, but if you miss it, this is where you can check that status. Do read those emails, though, since they can tell you some of what the publisher wants from you. Though you don’t have to comply if the request isn’t reasonable — if they expect a review, for example — some publishers kindly ask you to hold off on posting reviews until it’s near publication date. That kind of stuff I do keep in mind when reviewing, especially if it’s for a book I really enjoyed.
There’s a second tab beside the Request tab worth knowing about, too. Though it looks like it has the same information, the Downloads tab is where you’ll input reviews of titles you’ve requested if you want to do that. Many people think you have to write or share a review for each title you request, and I think it’s courtesy to do that, but I’m not very good at it. I think part of why is because I read a lot and review them in other venues — Stacked or on Goodreads — though it’d be just as easy for me to copy those reviews and put them into Edelweiss.
Here’s a look at the titles I’ve requested and downloaded in the last 4 months (I can change the view to look at books within the last 2 days or up to the last year or more) and on the right-hand column, I can put in my review. As you can see, too, I do my requests/downloads in batches. I should probably get better about doing that with reviews. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t include a review, but it’s probably a good idea to do that if you aren’t reviewing in other places. Here’s what the review screen looks like. Note that your profile from where you request review copies carries over into the review form, too:
You can leave a recommendation for the book with your level of enthusiasm, and you’re also able to leave a text review. On the bottom right-hand side, you can see that you have options for who can see the review. The little blue “i” boxes will tell you what IndieNext and LibraryReads are, so if you’re able to submit to either of those, feel free to do so. Edelweiss is a professional tool used by professionals, so if you’re a librarian and the title fits the LibraryNext criteria, then go for it.
Those reviews you enter into Edelweiss can be seen in the catalog if a publisher so chooses. I hopped up to the search bar on the top of the screen — the one that looks at All Titles, as opposed to just the review titles search — and put in 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith to get back to the main catalog entry for it, which looks like this:
The entry notes that there is 1 featured peer review and that it has received “much love” from 11 peers. 11 people were enthusiastic enough to give this a “much love” rating in their review box, and one person wrote and submitted a text review that then the publisher allowed other users to read:
I think of those text reviews like Amazon or Barnes & Noble reviews. They’re as useful as you allow them to be when you write them, and they’re as useful to you as you allow them to be when you read them. They’re going to be better since this is an industry tool, as opposed to a consumer tool, so if you like reading reviews, digging through these when you’re looking at titles might not be a bad thing.
There is another way to read through reviews, too, but it’s a little more involved. Edelweiss has ways for you to make the site social in a GoodReads sort of way. I don’t use it this way, so I can’t show a good example, but up on the main bar of tabs at the top of the screen, there’s a tab for Reviews:
If you use the social aspects of Edelweiss and have friends on the site, you’re able to see what reviews they’ve submitted within any give time frame. You can also filter it down by which friend reviews you want to look through. For me, this isn’t particularly useful, but I can see it being an interesting thing to toy with if you’re at a school or a library with multiple people reading and reviewing titles.
Buzz
 
Another basic feature worth hitting in Edelweiss is the “Buzz” tab. You can find that up on the top bar, where you found the “Review Copies” tab. This digs through the catalogs and pulls out entries that fall within a variety of different awards.
Say you want to know what books were on the recent LibraryReads list but can’t remember or you want to read through their descriptions. You can find them all here under this tab. The future pub titles are for the most recent list — the August LibraryReads list — and the recent pub titles are ones from the last four months. The backlist are from prior seasonal catalogs (and remember in the publishing world that backlist is 6 months old, so those would include titles that were published this year).
Though there’s not a whole lot here for those interested in children’s or YA titles, I still find it’s useful to look through periodically because it tells me what books are being talked about in other arenas. I may not be reading them, but other people are, and knowing that is useful to me.
Interestingly, if you were to see the rest of this page of buzzed titles, you’d see that Texas’s state awards titles are included, as are starred reviews from Publishers Weekly. I’m not sure I know how the lists got included here or what the criteria are for being included, but they’re worth a look.
Using Search

The final basic thing worth knowing about Edelweiss is their advanced search feature. It’s imperfect and misses a lot of things I know I catch when I read the individual entries, but it is a great starting point when you have a question or want to try to remember something you thought you saw.

On the second row of tabs across the top of the main screen page, there’s a tab for “Advanced Search.” When you click on it, you’re taken to a screen where you can search through a ton of different elements within the catalog entries. Again, since publishers include different information in different parts of their entries, this is going to be imperfect searching.
I find using the “summaries” and “keynotes” boxes the most useful for seeking out what I’m looking for. So, for example, I think I’ve seen a few books that have been compared to Looking for Alaska recently. But I want to know what some of them might be. I can do that from here by going to the “summaries” box and doing a search for Looking for Alaska and changing my delimiter to “containing the exact phrase.” I could limit my search to specific catalog seasons (which is useful if you’re looking for books about a certain topic coming out in the fall) or to specific publishers (like I did in a prior microtrends post, I did for books featuring girls named “Lucy” — I kept it to the publishers I knew did YA). In this case, I’m not going to limit though, since I limited by search to the exact phrase “Looking for Alaska.”
This is what that search looks like when you run it. Note that if you’re looking for something big, the search can take a long time and can sometimes bring you tons of unnecessary results. This one is pretty straightforward and limited, though:
When I get the results for this search, I get 28 entries. Among them are the various editions and sales models for Looking for Alaska and books which were reviewed by Green. A couple of titles pop up that include the words “looking” and “Alaska” in their summaries, too, even though they’re not being compared. But out of 28 titles, I can browse and see that a few have been compared to the book in their summaries:
Indeed, there’s at least one forthcoming book with that in the description.
I looked through the rest of the entries I got for this search and they confirmed that a few titles in the past have been compared to Looking for Alaska. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it doesn’t capture all of the titles I know have that comparison. The advanced search, as I noted, is imperfect, but it’s a really good starting place. If I wanted to find more comps, I’d go back and revise my search to look in the keynotes, too, as it might help me pull up some of the other titles I know have that comparison drawn (one off the top of my head which didn’t appear in any search combination I did is Chelsey Philpot’s Even in Paradise, despite the fact the exact phrase Looking for Alaska is right there in the summary).
To Wrap Up
 
While the interface is imperfect and there are things which aren’t intuitive, Edelweiss is a great tool for professional readers or those who teach or work in libraries. It takes experimentation and everyone will find different aspects of it suit their needs and their interests. I’ve laid out the basics here, and from those starting points, I’m able to pull out the information I am looking for or thinking about. I use Edelweiss to put together previews and to talk about book covers and trends. Since these are the catalogs from the publishers, I trust them more than I trust pulling images from a retail site (those aren’t always accurate, as the wrong cover may have been submitted).
Feel free to ask questions if you have any and I can try my best to answer. Edelweiss does have a pretty good help page, which has a lot of other tips and tricks to help you navigate and use the site in the best way possible. Edelweiss is what you make of it, and once you have the basics down, you’ll find that you’ll use it more than you thought you would.
If you know any other tips or tricks I should know about, I’d love to know those, too.

A Short Update on a Policy Change

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about why I was choosing to step down from my elected position on the Printz committee next year. YALSA changed a policy with regards to how members on committees may use social media, and it said the following:

This is all noted in my post, along with the original policy that was up for a consent vote at annual in June.

The element of the policy about not communicating electronically about any eligible titles was the cause for concern. And I wasn’t the only person who saw this and had questions. Those questions were asked of YALSA, and they weren’t answered, suggesting that indeed, the policy was clear enough.

When I wrote my letter to the executive director and to the incoming president of YALSA, I laid out that this particular element within the policy, about no communication about any eligible titles electronically, was my sticking point. The response I got to my concern was short, brief, and said thanks for considering the opportunity and whether it was a good fit for me, followed by assurance my vacancy would be filled.

No explanation. No clarification. No pointing out my interpretation was incorrect.

I took that to mean I had read this correctly, both because my question wasn’t answered about interpretation and also because the response I got following my concern being why I thought it was best to step down didn’t address a misinterpretation.

But now, the FAQ has changed.

Following annual, a new FAQ about the social media policy came out, and it’s much friendlier. The sticking point about whether committee members were gag ordered was clarified to say blogging and tweeting in non-review form of eligible titles would be fine. You can read it in full here.

It’s good YALSA followed through and clarified this policy. It makes it clear, consistent, and allows professionals to be just that: professional. They’re asked to use their best judgment in talking about eligible titles, rather than being told they can’t speak about them at all. This is a great thing, and I’m glad that members now know that writing book lists or otherwise sharing information about titles which may be eligible for their committee’s award or selection list is okay.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t change a thing for me.

It’s more disappointing than I can express that, despite multiple attempts, my concerns about this could not be addressed. That even in private communication, those in charge at YALSA chose not to discuss with me the issues I had and chose not to tell me that the FAQ could change or that my interpretation was incorrect. If anything, it feels personal, as this change came after asking and after quitting.

While I will continue to support YALSA members and the incredible work they put into the organization through volunteering, through educating, and through sharing, I will not be further involving myself with the organization. When my membership renewal is up next month, I will be spending that money in other ways.

We have to make choices about our time, our energy, and our money. At this point, it’s clear to me that YALSA doesn’t want me part of their organization, so I’m going to choose to go elsewhere.

Doing Our Part: YALSA Award and Selection List Nominations

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Remember last year when I blogged about how anyone can suggest titles for YALSA’s award and selection lists? And I explained how to do it and why it’s important?

Here’s a reminder. Please read it if you haven’t.

I wanted to put out a little more information about the committee I am a part of this year. As you may or may not know, I am a member of this Outstanding Books for the College Bound (OBCB). Here is our charge and on that site, you’ll also see the list from the prior committee. If you are too lazy to click the link, it reads:

The books on this list offer opportunities to discover new ideas, and provide an introduction to the fascinating variety of subjects within an academic discipline. Readers will gain an understanding of our diverse world and build a foundation to deepen their response to that world. This list is developed every five years.
A YALSA committee of public, secondary school, and academic librarians sellects the list.  Revised every five years as a tool for several audiences (students preparing for college, educators, librarians, and parents) it offers opportunities for independent reading and lifelong learning. Use it to round out your reading as you prepare for college entrance exams and courses, to strengthen your knowledge in a variety of subject areas and enhance appreciation for different cultures and times.

The OBCB is a committee that comes together only once every five years. So this list is updated every five years. Meaning — there is a lot of stuff to read and consider for the list when it is revisited and revised.

But you can be a part of this process, and I BEG you to help out. If you know of books that fit the charge, that you think the committee should at least consider (and note — it doesn’t mean the title will ever be nominated but it will at least be looked at and considered), please suggest it here. I am focusing on reading books falling into a couple of the categories of our committee, Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. I feel like I am getting a really neat education of stuff I have always been interested in and in things I never knew about before.

Who can suggest titles? Anyone who reads. You just cannot be the author of the book or related to the publisher/house. Details are on the form.

If you haven’t spent a few minutes suggesting titles for any lists yet this year, get to it. I plan on sitting down one weekend and filling out a ton of suggestions for books I’ve read and loved this year. I urge you to do this, too.

Expectation and reward

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I’ve been sitting on this for a few weeks now — which is how I feel I start all of these posts about blogging and about reviewing. But I think it was really April’s post today that got me to sit down and hash out my thoughts a bit on this. So before delving in, I urge you to read her post about how blogging isn’t a competition.

Back in May I blogged about how blogging is hard. And I still believe wholeheartedly in that. Maybe more so now that I’m reflecting back on how the last couple of months have been for me when it comes to blogging. I’ve got a pile in a double digits of books I want to write reviews for, but every time I sit down to tackle it, even for books I am really eager to write thoughtful posts for, I manage to convince myself writing about something else is more worthwhile. I’m not sure whether that assessment is or isn’t true, but it pulls my mind away from working on the task in front of me.

I am and always have been the all or nothing type, and it goes into everything I do. I blog and I blog with my whole heart. I read and I read with my whole heart. I write and I write with my whole heart. I think anyone who knows me would say that about me and I hope that those who are close to me would say that that’s how I am with people I care about, too. It’s just who I am.

But when I find myself in a dry spell in an area, I cannot make myself do anything relating to it. So I’ve hit this dry spell in writing reviews that’s lasted for months now. Even as I felt like I finally broke through the wall this week by writing a lengthy — and I think strong — review for a book I’m posting later this month, I stepped back after I scheduled it and wondered: why?

Blogging is and always will be something I do for myself, but more than once I wonder why I do it. I get a lot out of it and it has connected me to so many people and so many good books. I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating in saying that blogging has changed my life. It’s made me a much more stable, happy, and thoughtful person than I was before. Some of that is simply growing up because who I was at 24 when I started this blog is hardly a slice of who I am now at almost-28 writing this blog. Part of me wonders how much of it is learning about different aspects of my profession and about the book and reviewing world (two or three or four or five or more separate things all sort of co-mingling) that jades me a bit and part of me — maybe a bigger part of me — wonders about people and the straight-up human aspects of blogging and writing and engagement and how much those have influenced me in the last few months. It’s never really been a secret, for example, that authors might buy reviews of their books and it’s never really been a secret that some bloggers have preferential treatment from publishers. What has been surprising, though, is what people respond to and what sets them off.

I feel like I learned this lesson hard after the ARC discussion following ALA. Who knew something so … innocuous … could send people into such passion? Or that discussing being critical or being passionate about what you do would get people thinking and talking? Who knew that blogging about a fitness DVD could, dare I say, cause a number of people who hadn’t been working out to suddenly dive in? I love that that happened and I love thinking that maybe something I said inspired one person to try something new. That’s awesome. It really is.

But then I think back to writing reviews and books and why I wanted to start blogging in the first place. I pour my heart and soul into the reviews I do write because that’s just who I am. It’s all or nothing. Lately, it’s been nothing, and I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact I don’t know what reward I am getting out of writing them. Or maybe that’s not really it. Maybe it’s that I don’t feel writing a review of a book commands the sort of discussion or interest or passion that other posts do.

Or maybe it’s that the things I listed as having fantastic responses and engagement have made me do a lot of thinking about what I’m doing this for anyway. Is it me? I think it is. But then I wonder why I feel so discouraged when reviews sort of slide under the radar or when they’re drowned out. Maybe it’s that reading is a much more private activity? Or that it’s something so personal and individual that it can never sustain the sort of fevered discussion other topics do? Maybe it’s that other bloggers with whom I like to talk regularly don’t want to read or engage in a discussion over a book they haven’t read yet because they don’t want to be influenced (I do that).

I’m not sure I have an answer.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows this about me, too: I’m not a loud person. I never did well in the participation aspect of any class I took. I prefer to sit back and listen. I like to hear what other people say and process it at many different levels before I respond. I’m highly introverted. I love being around people but I need me time to decompress, to recollect myself, to recenter. Blogging has forced me to push outside a lot of my comfort zones. Maybe what would be surprising is that a lot of those bigger posts have made me really uncomfortable.

I love discussion and I love when people are engaged in content here and I certainly don’t want that to stop. It’s what makes blogging exciting and keeps me wanting to continue. It makes me want to look for other people who are blogging and writing and share their great things with others, too. But in a lot of those discussions, I feel like I lost a bit of myself. Of my need to refocus and recenter. Of my need to reengage with my own thoughts.

Writing reviews is that very introverted part of me. I think they’re the most intimate and raw things I do write because they come from a lot of internal vulnerabilities or thoughts I’ve had about any number of things. Part of me wonders if other people feel this way, too, and if that’s what makes writing them so difficult sometimes. If that’s why there are long periods of nothing followed by bursts of energy to review, review, review. If that’s why there’s not always much engagement with book reviews, despite how much I think one I’ve written just nails it perfectly.

It’s not about pressure for me, and it never has been nor will it ever be. It’s more about my need to dig inside myself and pull from sensitivities, from experiences I don’t always feel comfortable thinking or writing about, from all these lessons I’ve learned over the course of blogging and just growing up and becoming the person I really strive to be. There’s all and there’s nothing. And right now, there’s been a lot of nothing, but not for lack of trying or care.

At the end of the day, it’s about what I expect from my own reviewing and my own writing. The reward is self-discovery and self-gratification and feeling as though I’ve walked away from what I’m doing with my whole heart with some kind of reward. The droughts — especially ones that have dragged on as long as this one has — are painful and annoying. All I expect is to walk away feeling like I’ve done what I love doing.

Blogging is hard. Writing reviews is hard. Putting yourself out there is hard. It’s a constant struggle for how much to say and how much to hold back. It’s also about image and perception and approachability. I love when people want to reach out. But how much can I give back fairly to everyone and still hold something true to myself? I know I owe nothing to anyone expect myself, but when you’re a blogger and when you love the way people engage with you, there’s a lot of thought behind where you draw the line in the sand. And when you’re an all or nothing person, it’s tough. You want to give your all where you can, even if it means at some point you may leave yourself with nothing.

I have to keep reminding myself it’s okay. I am an imperfect person, and that is okay. There are things I don’t have to do until I feel ready to do them, and that is okay. If I declare book review bankruptcy on the things sitting in my pile because I just don’t have it in me . . . that’s okay. The only expectations and rewards required are the ones I get myself.

Maybe blogging this does the opposite of what I’m saying I want, but I share it because I have a feeling there are many bloggers — new bloggers and more seasoned bloggers — who will understand this or empathize with this right now, in the future, or have struggled with it.

We’re human.

It’s okay.

On passion and igniting it

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This last week has been an education for me.

I’ve always believed words were powerful — that’s why I love reading and talking about books — but it never once struck me how powerful my own words could be. That my own feelings and beliefs and thoughts, when strung together, could cause such a reaction. I never expected people within my own profession to look at what I said and simply react. To take the thoughts I had shared on this blog, read them, then put down their own thoughts to what I’d said.

Then spread them wildly.

I made the conscious choice to step back because I stood by what I’d said. It was, I believe, the first time I’ve written a post on a topic I was so passionate about and not had a second pair of eyes look over them. Every word came from my heart, came from a place of believing that everyone should have equal and equitable access to resources, knowledge.

To passion.

My words came back to me repeatedly and in ways that really hurt. That stomped upon my heart and my passion and my beliefs. That made a mockery out of me in a wide and downright painful way. I watched as a profession I went into because of how much it embraces sharing and knowledge choose to make light of an issue they didn’t understand. An issue that didn’t ignite them or make them feel like there has to be a better way.

I’m sitting in a weird place right now. I feel incredibly vulnerable and lost and sometimes question my own legitimacy and place in the world and regularly ask what the hell I am doing with my life. I read posts like this one — written by an incredibly impassioned 14-year-old — and then I read stories like this one in the New York Times, and they make me pause and think for a bit about where I am in the world. What it is that gets me going in the morning, what it is that makes me care about any and everything.

I wrestled with being depressed in high school, and I wrestled with it deeply in college, especially that first year. It’s been a while since then, and over these years I’ve grown to understand the root cause of feeling depressed came from thinking I didn’t have a passion. That no single thing got me fired up in a way that if I did not partake in that activity, I would feel like I was wasting time or effort or energy. No single thing gave me purpose or merit. When you’re surrounded by people who do have this, who have so figured out who they are and what their goals are and chase them, it’s hard to feel like your own goals or dreams carry any sort of weight. Watching people push themselves in the classroom and outside it, working toward becoming a doctor or a lawyer or anything equally admirable is hard when your goals are much, much smaller. It can make you feel like your passions aren’t passions or that you don’t hold passion or the capacity for it within your heart.

I steeled myself a lot, and still do, when it comes to thinking about dreams and goals. I think about and read about those people who are achieving big things. For so long, I compared myself (and to an extent, I still do that) and wondered why I was where I am age-wise, career-wise, goal-wise, and why I hadn’t done or seen or had more. Why I don’t have aspirations to be a library manager or director or in some sort of big leadership capacity within my professional organization. By 27, after a few years in the field, I thought I’d hit that point. But I haven’t, and I don’t know if I ever will.

I was that wildly impassioned 14-year-old I linked to back in the day; in revisiting old journals, the ones still easy to find on the internet with the right keywords or memory, I found myself talking about not bothering to go to college because I wanted to write. I revisit old journals from college and find myself talking about dropping out of college because I could write (my dream had been for so long to become a journalist and work for a paper because I was realistic in knowing I couldn’t make a living off writing poetry).

But then I look at the journals I kept in graduate school — probably the only time in my life I truly loathed school and everything related therein — and I found such satisfaction in writing about books. In talking about what did and didn’t work in writing. In sharing those books and my thoughts about those books with other people who’d have a light bulb go off. Who’d then read that book and tell me yes, it was great or that was terrible (sometimes those reactions are more satisfying). I found myself passionate about getting other people excited about things.

That’s part of why I’m a librarian, part of why I love working with teenagers — arguably the most passionate people around –, part of why I blog and talk about books, part of why I talk about writing as much as I do. I love getting people excited about the things that excite me. I love supporting people in their pursuit of their own passions and dreams and goals.

I’m lucky to have the opportunities in my life that I do, and I’m lucky to have a support system that not only encourages me in pursuing a passion that’s not top-caliber, not something that’ll be remembered a hundred years from now, not something that’ll bring me awards or accolades or, hell, any sort of financial stability. It is so hard sometimes not to stop and step back and worry about whether it amounts to anything of worth or value or whether it’s just spinning wheels. It’s hard not to wonder how many ways I’ve stalled out before I’ve had the chance to go somewhere further or deeper. Time ticks and you can’t always know whether what you’re pursuing has any meaning.

Passion makes you terribly vulnerable.

I try not to talk personal on this blog because, well, this is a book blog. I’m a non-biased, objective reviewer who aims to be critical and thoughtful. But over the last three years of doing this, I’ve had the opportunity to pursue a passion so deep and connect with other people who find themselves as impassioned as I am about getting other people excited about books and reading.

If the last week has been any indication — and I’m not just talking about this — I’ve found that being passionate means enduring a lot of judgment and criticism. That people are holding you to the same standards to which you’re holding those who you believe have a passion greater than your own. That people look at what it is that brings you value and meaning and wonder whether or not they themselves have that sort of feeling within them. Whether or not they’re exploring their own passions or feel as deeply about something that you do.

I let myself get really upset yesterday about the things people wrote about me. Let myself cry, then get angry. I let myself have that alone, by myself, on my couch. I still dread looking in my inbox whenever there is a new message. Still get a little worried when someone I don’t follow sends me a message on Twitter. Still find my heart racing whenever that post gets shared again somewhere.

The thing is though, I think my passion hit critical mass. My words? They were shared. People were listening, reacting, thinking. I shared and got a lot of other people really excited about things. I allowed the thing that got me going to be something that got other people going.

I acted.

Rereading the NYT article and rereading that post by an impassioned 14-year-old made me realize that what matters is pursuing what matters to you, regardless of what it means to someone else. I’m never going to be famous or rich. I’m never going to have a seven-figure book contract or star in a Hollywood blockbuster. I’m never going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a rocket scientist. But what I am and what I can be, I think, is so much more than a label or a position in management or in leadership by some name or title. I can share and support and love deeply and fiercely and find satisfaction in making the world just a little bit of a better place because of those things.

Words and actions are amazing things. When they’re used right, they ignite fires you could never imagine. I’ll never be extraordinary, but I can be satisfied with being ordinary — as long as I let the things I love be the center of what I do. Even if it hurts sometimes.