Back in January I was starting to get all my duckies in a row for the year. Around this same time, Kristiej posted, I believe at RtB, something about how I had done a good job of helping get the word out on ebooks.

I looked at my notes, yes there are notes in fact there are three notebooks, and I was somewhat shocked that I hadn’t really thought much about the ebuzz. Many of the authors I read are moving into print and the three lines I read most… well doesn’t everyone know about them? So I thought, bad sybil, and thought of something to do about it.

The first step was to step outside of my reader book and contact some epublishers. Samhain, Ellora’s Cave and Liquid Silver Books have always been grand to work with and were my first stops. Then I started to look over some others and remembered a small start up epub I worked with when they opened.

So I contacted the same person I had worked with before at Cobblestone. I thought a few of their titles looked good and there was a third installment of a series I had a review to put up. I was somewhat shocked by the response.

Seems Cobblestone, an epublisher, decided there wasn’t enough variety or response from having reviews done on blogs. Keep in mind they were more then happy to send to bloggers (at least they did to me) when they opened. And now they didn’t think we were worth their time.

I recall one of their first books being reviewed by jane of dear author. I also reviewed the book and as normal our opinions were different. Dare I say diverse? Could the problem be they weren’t glowing reviews? Or could it be the Cobblestone authors came out to shake their tail feathers and did a grand job of selling the epublisher?

Really who needs blogger opinion when they have such great, informative and diverse reviews sites you can find online (many showcased on their site). Their stories get FIVE HEARTS, FIVE STARS, FIVE RIBBONS for all I know they even get FIVE WET THONGS! You can’t get better variety than that can you? And the cost of sending those eARCs really can weigh down an epublisher.

So I crossed them off my list and was sidetracked filling my schedule of author days and watching my line weeks grow from two to four. And then today, I get a press release. It isn’t all that odd for me to get publisher press release. In fact I get them from many publishers but this one… this was from Cobblestone.

I, being the kind soul I am, sent an email requesting since they didn’t see a need to work with blogs they should take me off the list. Their response you ask?

It would seem Cobblestone is more than happy to work with blogs. They would let me do interviews with their authors. They would allow me to put together promotion on my blog. I can feature their authors and their books! They would even be so kind as to include me in their brand new, never been heard of before magazine. My url would be listed with the other bloggers who have supported their industry and community. Or have participated in their events, which I am assuming are chats and such.

Cobblestone is providing this service for FREE. Oddly enough they still don’t have faith in their authors or their stories to provide them for review to those same bloggers. As a reader blogger, I know you won’t like every book I recommend. I know you will not walk away from every author day thinking I need that book! I even WANT you to post why you don’t agree with me. But I know that every author who guests is an author ‘I’ would recommend. And every line is one that ‘I’ find interesting and want to share with other romance readers.

I found the idea of an epublisher not wanting a blog review to be ironic. Ironic doesn’t begin to describe what I think of this. Sadly I have decided I will have to pass on being listed in Cobblestone’s nifty mag and will somehow just make do with Reuters and any other unknown blogburst site that chooses to syndicate me.

But now… I have a dream or even dare say a goal.