Making Progress

Porch with rocking chairs, hanging baskets, and columns.I spent much of the last day in synagogue, because it’s Yom Kippur, better known as “The day of atonement,” and known in my house when “the day you spend a lot of time in a big room with people who didn’t brush their teeth that morning.”

Apparently, Emily VeingloryMrs. Giggles and Kate Garrabrant think that there’s something I ought to have been atoning for.

The short story is, I am part of a small consulting company called Simple Progress. Simple Progress was originally Mollie Smith’s company, and she’s brilliant at web management, design, and author website administration. Most of the client list she built herself. She’s pretty badass. Recently she invited me to join her company because over our semi-regular breakfast meetings (we are also neighbors) we would discuss social marketing needs for her clients, and I’d pitch ideas that would work for the authors to run for themselves or for Mollie to administer with programming, plugins and other magical things.

We think of it like languages. Mollie is extremely fluent in technology and in author promotion needs, especially since authors need to take on more of their own marketing responsibilities. I’m pretty fluent in social media and in how campaigns might effectively reach readers online in a way that isn’t an aggressive hard sell.

In other words, I speak social media and reader and author interaction; Mollie speaks tech and author, and the two of us work together to come up with social media campaigns that speak as many of those languages as possible, and that an author can run on her own. Most of what we do is web administration, mailing list management, and a small amount of consulting. 

Given the accusations about my integrity, I want to make a few corrections:

We did not come up with or administer in any way the recent JD Robb New York to Dallas Facebook scavenger hunt. If we had, I wouldn’t have participated. That campaign was concocted by some really smart marketing folks, including the marketing and publicity team over at Penguin, and run by Nora’s team – and it was pretty freaking spiffy. I think it was brilliant in the way that it involved readers and visited so many diverse web sites.

Another point: it seems that my involvement with Simple Progress has caused festive accusations to fly that I must be being paid by my clients to promote them here.

At no time am I paid to promote authors in reviews here on this site. What appears in this space is my opinion.

In fact, in our proposals and contracts, we state the following:

Promotion on any website owned or operated in whole or in part by Mollie Smith or Sarah Wendell is not included in the scope of this project.

I am not ever paid or compensated for my opinion here. I don’t know how to say that more strongly.

There are authors on the client list whose books I really, really enjoyed, and there’s books by those authors that I haven’t liked as much. But it’s an insult to them and to me that they’d need to pay for mention here or anywhere else.

It hasn’t escaped my notice that the people who have the most interest in my ethics and morals are other bloggers, bloggers with whom I thought I was on good terms. Honestly, that makes me ineffably sad. I wish that if someone had a problem with me, they’d have brought it to me, rather than talk about me online or obliquely on Twitter (hell, Katie is my neighbor, too. She’s been invited into my home and met my family. She could have rung my doorbell to talk to me).

Everything is changing online and off: agents are publishers. Bloggers, like me, are authors. Bloggers are freelancing for publishers and media outlets. Readers and reviewers are in all sorts of different roles, from copyediting to critiquing to beta readers for publishing houses. We all switch places when we ring the bell, I think. The online community is a pretty close and intermixed neighborhood, and we’re all doing new and different and amazing things – sometimes hourly.

If my involvement with Simple Progress has caused you to doubt my truthfulness or to doubt my honesty in my opinions about books, that really sucks and I’m sorry to hear it. But the good thing is, there are so many amazing romance review blogs now, there’s no shortage of opinions about the novels we love, and I hope you find excellent books to read in every genre you like.

But I also trust that if you personally thought I was up to something funny, that I was trying to pull the wool over your eyes and deceive you, you’d call me on it here so damn fast my head would spin.

I presume that’s still true. I hope it is, anyway. If I wrote a review or a comment in favor of a book that you thought was incentivized in any way, I trust entirely you’d call me on it immediately. But I would never do that to you because I value your opinion and your presence here.

There are few things I am more in awe of than the community of readers at this site. You’re as honest with me as you are with each other, and I value that more than I can say.

 

Categorized:

General Bitching...

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  1. eggs says:

    Come for the reviews, stay for the comments thread!  Sarah announced she’s got a new job and so far we’ve covered ethics, mean girls, trolls, nuns, child pronography loving academics and e-stalkers.  All that’s left is for someone to say another poster ‘sounds fat’ and we can print this one out and put it in a classy faux rococo frame. Interwebs gold, I tell you, GOLD!!

  2. Fat says:

    Eggs, it is too tempting.  While I cannot insult another reader, let me say that I am feeling a bit fat. 

    Does that do it for you?

  3. chrocs says:

    You can’t say you’re fat. You don’t understand fat. I was fat back when you were a twig. I and only I know all about the fatness.

  4. Kim says:

    Wow – To post a link on her Mrs. Goggles blog, then claim she wasn’t making an accusation, defies credulity. At least have the nerve to state her complaint, which has some merit, and explain the conflict of interest. Too feign bewilderment is a bit much.

    Although Courtney Milan makes a valid point that until Sarah reviews a client’s book, a conflict hasn’t been reached, a disclaimer would alleviated even the appearance. As others have said, it’s always better to err on the side of caution.

    Finally, I thought Mrs. Giggles responses were chidlish. It’s one thing to be snarky, it’s another to be so mean-spirited and uncivil.

  5. Madd says:

    @chrocs … How very dare you! I’ve known fat since before fat was fat! lol

    Also, you said fat back … which made me think of food, but also of back fat … now I am disturbed.

  6. chrocs says:

    @Madd

    I am all kinds of fatness. You should be disturbed, all right.

  7. Yes, No, Maybe says:

    Sarah, I like you and I like your site. I get a kick outta of the snark and the funny and thoughtful topics and reviews. None of that stops me from disagreeing with some of your reviews But hey, that’s okay, different strokes for different folks and all that. Your blog’s reputation grew because you had some great stuff to offer me as a romance reader and I appreciate it. Unfortunately, good things in life don’t come free. Sites cost, hence the advertising. But I’m cool with that.The side benefit of advertising is the intro to new authors and releases, plus the eye candy!
    I’m not your bf nor do I have any business dealings with you. To be frank I never thought about your integrity because I never had cause to questioned it and still don’t.You explained and that’s enough for me.
    Now…
    Dear Mrs. Giggles & fellow cohorts,
    My grandmother was a no guff kinda woman and called it as she saw it. “If you have something to say, say it! Or keep it to yourself.”
    or if you prefer…
    “For many years I thought an innuendo was an Italian suppository
    -Spike Milligan, British comedian
    And my personal favorite…
    Don’t poop in your backyard!
    Got it?!

  8. kim says:

    I don’t generally follow Sarah or any of her detractors mentioned above on a regular basis. I don’t like/dislike anyone or even know any of the history between these people. As long term readers of this blog, most of the commenters will vouch for Sarah’s integrity, but for me, since I do not have the background, I am sorry to say that her possible conflict of interest and not disclosing it immediately will color how I view her reviews. That doesn’t mean I will not read them, or that I think they are not her opinion, just that I don’t have the history and therefore the ability to trust in her the same way that you all do.

    I’m not trying to offend or start anything, I just wanted to express my view as someone on the perimeter.

  9. Liza says:

    Hypocrite thy name is Hypocrite:

    Honestly, that makes me ineffably sad. I wish that if someone had a problem with me, they’d have brought it to me, rather than talk about me online or obliquely on Twitter

    I can remember that which made you famous which is still on the sidebar of your page and how you defended your position then about contacting Cassie Edwards, and you sat there on your high horse,

    Now you want different treatment than you have given others.  Its a news story and allowable when you place it on your site and have pages and pages of the what? Story? proof ? Spreadsheets.  Yes we have proof yes we are cutting edge journalists?  Do not question how wonderful and smart and great we are.

    Mrs. G writes nothing except shows a link and she should check with you first.

    Hypocrite thy name is Hypocrite

    my captcha is room73
    Are we not back in high school now.

  10. MaryK says:

    I’m subscribed to comments and I’m getting two emails for each comment.  One is the comment and one is blank with quoted text.

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