Lady Business

"What are some of the factors controlling this? How influenced are bloggers by what publishers send them?"

This really interests me and connects with the point Renee made about how the books we review are a choice. In that sense why should what publishers send us be a factor at all if ultimately, the choices we make about the books we pick to read and review for our blogs are (or really should be) OURS? If publishers are only sending us books by male writers, perhaps it is worth asking them for more variety? From our experience with The Book Smugglers, publicists usually send us lists and catalogues for us to pick from and they have a variety of authors - male and female - in them. They are usually also happy to send things we request. In all fairness though, I know sometimes it is not that easy and at times, we have been frustrated by what we have received from publishers. This was easy to deal with though, by contacting them and saying "x types of books don't interest us". We have also requested a few publishers to remove us from their lists.

I feel like this should be obvious but there are other options to what publishers send - buy the books you want to read and if you can't afford that, there is also the library.

Ana (The Book Smugglers)