2016, The Year That Was (The Grumpy Version)

As many of you will no doubt have realised over the course of your own literary adventures, blogging has its ups and downs, its good and bad points, and 2016 (my eighth year of reviewing) was no exception to this trend.  Over the next couple of days, I’m going to explore a few of these troughs and peaks in more detail, which means I must ask you to indulge me today while I whinge and whine.  Tomorrow, I’ll be putting a more positive spin on things, but this post is all about getting some stuff off my chest (metaphorically, of course…).

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Yes, the turn of the year brings up another bloggerversary (now I am eight!), but I’m starting to wonder what good it’s all done me, with the feeling that I’m not really going anywhere increasing with every year that passes.  Much of that comes from the miserable numbers that populate my WordPress stats page.  Yes, I know page views aren’t everything, but it is nice to feel that someone is actually bothering to read what you write.  If I’m lucky, I get a couple of hundred views a day (on a good day) and a few likes, but some of my favourite posts of the year, reviews I spent a lot of time on (e.g. the Your Face Tomorrow posts, my review of Some Rain Must Fall) sank without a trace.  It hardly seems worth the effort to craft full-length reviews when a few hundred words of fluff gets more attention…

I’m also a little disheartened by the setback in my efforts to do more external reviews.  After several requests in 2015 and the start of 2016, I’d even started dreaming of being paid occasionally for my trouble, but for most of this year, there’s been nothing on the horizon (and I wasn’t even paid for one I should have been paid for…).  To be honest, the money’s not important, but it is nice to feel that others in the area value your work, especially when (as I said above) things aren’t really moving along too well on the blog.

I hate to admit it, but it doesn’t help when I see other reviewers moving on, with invitations to review externally, take part in prize judging or even appear on conference panels.  I try not to be jealous, and I’m genuinely happy for everyone who is chosen for these gigs, but I’d be lying if I said there’s no sense of ‘why can’t that happen to me?’.  This is especially true when it comes to people I consider my peers, amateurs like me who don’t pursue this full-time, yet still manage to make their way into what looks like the inner circle of the reviewing world from my vantage point.

Perhaps this feeling is exacerbated because I’m located in Australia, which really is the arse end of the world when it comes to fiction in translation.  My interests are very much a minority pursuit here, and I can’t help but look on in envy at events happening in London and New York.  I’m frequently disappointed by the parochialism of the local scene, living on the tiny morsels of events that might come my way, and even when I tried to help out, I was met with disappointment.  A good while back, I contacted my local library to see if they’d be interested in having me give a (free) talk on translated literature, and I even had a quick chat to the events manager.  She asked me to email her the details, and then… crickets.  I’ve tried a couple of times since – somehow, I don’t think she’s that interested…

Still, at least I get lots of free books, right?  Well, yes and no.  Here in Australia, for example, I’m not particularly well known, and I have to ask nicely for anything (the major publishers basically ignore me).  In addition, some presses (especially in the US) are loath to post books to Australia because of the expense of the postage, and while I try to help out by accepting ebooks, the truth is that I don’t really like them.  #FirstWorldProblems?  Absolutely, and I’d be the first to admit that my complaints are all a little childish, but this is just a hobby, something I do in my free time – why should I bother if it’s a hassle…

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As promised, that was the grumpy version, but don’t feel too sorry for me – it’s not that bad, really.  Come back tomorrow to see a happier Tony, when I celebrate all the things that did go right last year 🙂