Book Blogger Friday with Anya From On Starships and Dragonwings

Welcome to Book Blogger Friday! This is a weekly event that helps authors meet book bloggers. Since one of the objectives of this blog is to educate and to help authors achieve their goals of selling more books, we like to take time to introduce some book bloggers on this blog.

Book Bloggers are the uber-fan. They love books and love helping authors promote their books. This week’s book blogger is Anya from the blog, On Starships & Dragonwings.  Please drop by her blog and say hi!

IBP – Introduce yourself and your blog

Anya – Hello, I’m Anya! I’m a sci-fi and fantasy book lover and computer science PhD student (uber nerd, I know!). My blog is On Starships and Dragonwings, and is the place for me to review the sci-fi and fantasy books I read, discuss book-related things and meet new book-loving friends. I aimed to incorporate both the science fiction and fantasy genres in the title .

IBP – Do you see yourself as a voracious reader?

Anya – Yes and no. Yes in that I definitely read more than the average person, ie every day and as much as I can. It’s what I do instead of watching TV or playing video games. No in that I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like to (every waking minute ) because of all the homework graduate school throws at me. There is a whole range of reading habits in the book blogging community and I think I fall on the low to middle end of the spectrum .

IBP – How long have you been blogging?

Anya – I started briefly in 2010, then took a break without realizing that there was a book blogging community. Once I found my first connection to the community, though, I started back up in March of 2012 and have loved it ever since!

IBP – What made you decide to start book blogging?

Anya – There were a number of reasons. Not a lot of my real life friends read the same kinds of books that I do (or as much as I do) and so I wanted to find other people that had similar book interests. I also had hit that stage where I just wanted to start a blog and figured that reading was the one hobby I had always loved and never quit, so it was the perfect thing to focus on! I never realized how vibrant the book blogging community was when I first started, but I’m so lucky to have found it.

IBP – What genre(s) does your blog focus on?

Anya – Fantasy and sci-fi all the way! This also included related genres like urban fantasy and dystopias, since they fall into the broad definitions of “stuff that isn’t in our world” . As far as the age range, I used to be all about adult books, but have since discovered the fun of reading YA, so I review both.

IBP – Has your reading tastes changed since you started your blog?

Anya – Yey segue-way! Yes, indeed. I don’t think I even knew what YA was before I started book blogging and reading other blogs’ reviews. The first YA book I tried was Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi and I obviously fell in love with the genre. I am still working on branching out too. I rely on the community for pretty much all my recommendations, especially genres that are a little outside my comfort range. Right now I’m looking for steampunk and mermaid recommendations if anyone has any .

IBP – Do you post reviews on your blog?

Anya – Yup! I have a fairly unique structure to my reviews actually. I always lay out the strengths and weaknesses of every book clearly, no matter what the actual star rating. I find that this helps readers understand why I gave the rating I did, since maybe they won’t agree with me on all points. It also helps when you have a bunch of posts you are reading in the morning, since all the information is laid out clearly, at least that’s how I hope it helps .

IBP – How many review requests do you get each month on average?

Anya – Not that many actually, maybe 3, though it varies widely each month. I read a lot of library books and borrowed books, since there are plenty of older books I want to catch up on in addition to new releases to support.

IBP – Do you have a Review Policy or something similar?

Anya – Yup, it’s on my About page. Basically, I’m accepting books for sci-fi and fantasy, YA and adult, though because of my obligations (graduate school), I can’t guarantee a minimum turn around time. If there is a specific date you want a review by, let me know and I’ll be honest about whether I can make it happen. I can accept physical and Kindle books. The best way to contact me is onstarshipsanddragonwings(at)gmail(dot)com or the contact form on my About page (http://www.onstarshipsanddragonwings.com/about/).

IBP – Do you review Indie or Small Pub books?

Anya – Yes! I love supporting Indie and Small Pub books, in fact some of my favorite books have been Indie/Small Pub. My biggest request to all Indie authors though is to invest in good editing at every level, since that is one thing that often brings down my rating of an Indie book that I could have loved. But yes, I am happy to accept books from Indie and Small Pub authors.

IBP – Do you host guest posts or interviews?

Anya – I don’t do them very often, but I’m happy to host guest posts if anyone is interested. I don’t host interviews often since I have such a hard time thinking of questions I think are good enough . I am always looking for more content though, so any guest posts would be welcome, just drop me a line!

IBP – What information do you require when an author approaches you?

Anya – Basically, the more information included in the email, the happier I am. One of the most impressive things I’ve seen is when an author clearly shows that they are familiar with my blog by saying why they think their book will specifically interest me because of some previous book I liked. But anyway, the information that is most important is obviously book title, their name, genre, and book description. What is also important but often overlooked is age range (this has been a problem in the past), Goodreads link (I, like many book bloggers, care more about what Goodreads says than Amazon), and what formats are available. Also if there is a date that you need the review by, definitely say that up front, since most of the time we have long lists of books to read before yours.

IBP – How can we stalk you?

Anya – Oh so many ways

You can go to the blog for the email form or…

Facebook   *   Twitter   *   RSS feed   *   Goodreads

Networked Blogs   *   Linkyfollowers

Happy reading!