Authors are being pushed by other authors, publicists, marketing experts and publishers to sign up for this “feature” that, according to the seller’s web site, “enhances [the] shopping experience.” Tactlessly put, they’re being pressured to send book buyers spam.

If you gather that I don’t like this trend, you are right. It is advertising at its worst because, as Beth, an avid and experienced reader noted, it’s “a greater annoyance than the irrelevant-to-me ads I click right past because it is more directly related to my reading history. It's trying harder to be personal. Perhaps it’s succeeding because I find the irritation more personal."
 
E-mail, online communities and other remote communicative interactions are the subject of many studies. But this new “opportunity” is particularly interesting to me, and I wondered if it was to others. So I asked how people felt about it, posting in—where else?—online communities for readers and writers. The answers varied from enthusiasm to infuriation with a couple of stops at indifference and censure.

The aforementioned Beth does not want plogs. If she has an interest in an author (and she often does), she prefers to google that person. “I don't think the author-as-personality trend has a significant impact on the reading habits of the general population,” she said, “and it certainly has none on mine. Recommendations from friends whose judgment I trust will always influence me more than anything that smells of marketing. I don't go around wanting relationships. I have friends to have relationships with.”

Heather, another passionate reader, stated, “Although I buy plenty of books from Amazon, I haven't yet received any plog stuff, so I can’t speak specifically to them. That said, I am mainly interested in the work and not the author, though I enjoy seeing and hearing authors speak, either in person or on BookTV. But I hate getting un-requested e-stuff of any kind.”

Susan, a longtime reader and published writer currently working on a memoir, enjoys learning more about authors, but only “when I read a book that really grabs me. I often go to the Internet to read reviews of the book and see if the author has a web site … But a book is more than simply its author's viewpoint, perspective. It's a creative work, and I am not sure I would want an author to feel the need to explain this or that about a work of art. I don't mean to sound mysterious here, but there is “something” that occurs in the interface between writer and reader. Part of this is, of course, the writer’s intent. Part of it is the reader’s perspective. Maybe I don't want a writer to demystify this experience” [with blogs  and plogs].

The reader known as “Medievalist” identifies herself as a Digital Medievalist, meaning that though her academic training is in the realm of codices and manuscripts she earns her living as a multimedia producer and digital technology consultant. Perhaps it is this that makes her more comfortable with plogs. “I think you can promote your books without being a shill,” she wrote. “For instance, I’m interested in reading that a book will be out on such and such a date, and maybe a short description of it or a link to such. I'm interested as well in finding other books to read—so I appreciate it when writers I like suggest other books.”

TPC, on the other hand, prefers his authors at “arm’s distance … unless I meet them outside of their books and find I have a connection I want to nurture beyond their lives as writers. If constant marketing takes away from [authors’] ability to write their next book, then, yes, its bad. I recognize that an author is often the best advocate for a book. On the other hand, marketing is a profession that can work wonders where an amateur's attempts will just fail.”

Sarah is on the dislike side. “On the whole, my impression is not favorable … I hate Amazon's ‘Such-and-such has a message for you!’ attitude. No, it’s a message that’s going out to millions, there’s nothing personal about it. And the content of most of the ones that were there on my homepage weren’t all that interesting to me. If I read a book, I don't close it and then want to know all about the author … I’d rather the authors I loved kept busy writing so that we might get books from them sooner.”

For the writers, plogs offer more ways to market their books or waste time, depending on their views. Victoria Strauss, author of seven fantasy books and co-founder of Writer Beware, is a reluctant participant. “I’m getting ready to do the Amazon plog out of a sense of obligation rather than because I have any interest in yakking about myself on Amazon. It’s sort of in the ‘because it's there’ category … when I published my first book, authors did not promote themselves unless they had a yen to do so. Now it’s all but required to do something—and if you don’t, or can’t, you feel as if your failures are your own fault, like a patient who’s told that her health problems are a result of not keeping a positive enough attitude.

“Of all the things that have changed in publishing … I think the relentless 'promote, promote, promote' mantra is driving writers to expend enormous time and effort on useless and pointless endeavors (since I’m convinced that most of what anyone does to self-promote has little or no impact). That time might be better spent writing. Or spending time with family. Or going for a walk.”

Victoria, meet Sarah.

Richard Cobbett is a UK writer and journalist specializes in computing and gaming writing. He believes “the key issue … isn't so much what you get up to in your personal life as your continued style … the biggest threat you face is the reader simply getting bored with you.”

Jenna Glatzer, the author of several writing guides and a ghostwriter of celebrity bios, runs Absolute Write, a popular writers’ forum. “I genuinely like the idea of readers getting to know me, and I genuinely dislike the idea of ‘selling myself,’ she penned. “Just by virtue of where it is, it feels like ‘selling myself.’ Dance, writer, dance. I want people to read my books. I want to keep making a living as a writer. But I don’t like feeling like a politician trying to ‘win’ readers.”

Finally, one reader who wishes to remain anonymous (an unsurprising request given his passionate reply) noted, “I wouldn’t like it at all because it’s spam. It should be an opt-in only feature, not one you have to opt out of … I'm certainly not interested in the lives of the authors who are doing plogs on Amazon, and the authors whose lives I would be interested in are either dead or too busy doing real work to plog away for Amazon … I would accept Plogs From the Beyond if Amazon could arrange it. That said, if I’d actually known them, perhaps I wouldn’t have enjoyed their books as much. If I had to choose between friendship and enjoyment of the books, I’d go for the latter, hands down. They [plogging authors] should all print out the motto ‘Shut up and write’ in 20-point type and paste the legend on their computer monitors.”

So there I have it. Plogs are new, they’re growing and they have their haters, reluctant joiners and enthusiasts. How it will all turn out is impossible to predict. We readers are a fussy bunch. No one or ten or even a thousand books is right for all of us. Nor is a single approach to promoting new books  workable for everyone. Still, I believe that the risk of alienating readers is high for authors who choose (or are pushed into using) plogs as yet another marketing device. The original question still stands: Will plogs be seen as a good thing or are they best kept as pig slop? I await the answer.


Since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to almost anyone who will listen. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats and nearly 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it