Today's guest is Nikki from Bibliophibian.
What made you want to be a book blogger?
Talking to people after my visit to Angry Robot HQ! Before that, I just stuck to Goodreads, and it was half just to keep control of my library. Now I spend more time on my blog than on GR or LT; it's nice to have a space that's my own, and to feel free from the need to catalogue everything there. Now I can just post selected reviews, and there's room for other bookish content as well.
What have been your best book blogging experiences?
I don't think there's any one thing I could put my finger on, so far. I just love the sense of community, the fact that every week something I post will connect me to dozens of other people who want to talk about the same things. Pretty revolutionary stuff to the kind of person who was bullied in school partly because of their love of books!
What has been your worst book blogging experience?
When I hosted an author for a Q&A and some troll who didn't like me came to comment on it, and said some awful things about her. I knew she'd see them, because she's a friend and reads my blog anyway, but I didn't want to delete them because I wanted my response to be right there, like, 'you don't bother me'. Ugh.
How many books do you own?
Uh. Well, I know I own 600 on Kindle, and I own 20 or so on Kobo. (I'm trying to diversify, now. A lot of the Kindle ones were free ones, though.) Then there's Baen and Weightless Books, which are the bane of my reading list. Then add my print books... I know I've got at least another 500 here where I'm living now, and probably way more than that at home. Despite my obsessive GR cataloguing, I don't really know the answer, because I also catalogue library books, books I give away, etc. It's easier for me to say how many I've read: approximately 2,600, though that misses out tons of series I read as a kid like Animorphs (does anyone else remember Animorphs?!) and, uh, well. Sabrina the Teenage Witch books.
Who is your favorite author?
Probably Jo Walton, but I might be biased because I know she's a great person too. I've enjoyed everything she's written, or at least appreciated it. Of course, I could always say Tolkien, because I could read The Lord of the Rings over and over again -- as a medievalist to MA level, I think it's pure genius -- and his academic work was astonishing too. And then there's Dorothy L. Sayers, because Lord Peter more or less saved my life, or -- I'll stop now.
What is your favorite book of all time?
sfksbgkjskfb I plead the fifth. I'm not American, can I still plead the fifth? But no, I think maybe Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence has to go here, and if I chose just one of those, it'd be The Grey King. Bran bowled me over and I was so proud of my Welsh heritage and all the Welsh connections to King Arthur, etc.
What are your thoughts on ebooks?
Love 'em. As you can guess from my answer to number four. I like both ebooks and dead tree books, for myself; I don't see it as a dichotomy. And I've posted a couple of times about the benefits of ereaders when it comes to accessibility too: my mother has macular degeneration, and I volunteer in the local eye clinic, so I'm very conscious of how much people love books. It's often the major concern people raise with me when they're upset at the clinic: "But how am I going to read?" Thank goodness there's answers for that now.
What are your thoughts on self-publishing?
I think it's a model that works for some people and not others. Authors have to be ready to get behind their books and really push when they self-publish, and some of them end up doing that in a really obnoxious way. It's a learning curve, I think, too, so I tend to be pretty tolerant of people putting out their first books. The thing I can't abide is sloppy editing: self-publishing is a way to get your book to people to read and enjoy in the way that suits you, but that doesn't and shouldn't mean avoiding everything about traditional publishing, including professional editing.
Any literary aspirations?
Sometimes. It comes and goes! I'd love to write and contribute to the amazing amount of diversity that's out there in the book market, someday. But the fact that I say 'someday' does show that I'm really not in a hurry about that...
What's your favorite joke of all time?
Hm. I'm not actually very good with jokes. I'll leave you with a pithy piece of advice from my dad that's almost like a joke, back when I first went to university and had to live with people I didn't know well. "If two people live together and claim they never argue, either a) they're lying or b) one of them has a gun."
I hasten to add, my parents argue."
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