It used to be that every mid-September brought Book Blogger Appreciation Week. That tradition was apparently begun in 2008 by Amy Riley, the Southern California author of a blog called My Friend Amy, and was intended “to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.” From what I can discern, this annual Web-wide endeavor had the misfortune to peter out in 2013. By then, the blogosphere was evolving rapidly, with many people who’d once thought it a splendid idea to start writing their own blogs finally buckling under the pressure of having to update them on a regular basis. As anyone who’s managed a blog will tell you, there’s a lot of work that goes into keeping these sites active. It’s far easier to every once in a while post a brief something on Facebook and be done with the matter.
Those very difficulties, though, make it important to recognize the folks who have kept at this enterprise. Although there have been many casualties in the crime-fiction-blogging world over the last few years, including a few sites that have fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic struck this last spring, there’s still a healthy crowd of people devoted to “the promotion and preservation of a literate culture.”
So, although this isn’t officially Blogger Appreciation Week, I am going to celebrate it as such. Below you will find 20 of my favorite blogs dealing with crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. Those penned principally by one person are clearly identified.
“TomCat” — Beneath the Stains of Time
Kristopher Zgorski — BOLO Books
Various authors — Bookgasm
Elizabeth Foxwell — The Bunburyist
Les Blatt — Classic Mysteries
Various authors — Do Some Damage
Martin Edwards — ‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’
Jiro Kimura — The Gumshoe Site
B.V. Lawson — In Reference to Murder
“Puzzle Doctor” — In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel
Kevin R. Tipple — Kevin’s Corner
Lesa Holstine — Lesa’s Book Critiques
Bill Selnes — Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan
Janet Rudolph — Mystery Fanfare
Steve Lewis — Mystery*File Blog
Various authors — Mystery Scene Blog
Various authors — Paperback Warrior
John “J.F.” Norris — Pretty Sinister Books
Andrew Nette — Pulp Curry
Ayo Onatade — Shotsmag Confidential
This list does not feature only book review blogs, but instead takes a more catholic view of genre coverage. It also leaves off bigger sites, such as CrimeReads and Criminal Element, that aren’t strictly “blogs,” and others that don’t deal principally with works in this genre.
Applauding those resources will just have to wait for another time.
Showing posts with label Best Blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Best Blogs. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 08, 2020
Friday, September 28, 2018
Taking in the Sites
Just over a year ago, I posted on this page a list of what I thought were the best English-language crime-fiction blogs and Web sites. I did this in response to a bogus assessment along the same lines, perpetrated by a newsfeed aggregator site that had been asking writers to purchase subscriptions to its services in exchange for their sites being listed among its “top 50” blogs for readers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. I thought people interested in this genre deserved a more honest rundown of what was found online.
The response to my efforts was overwhelmingly favorable. And it started me thinking that perhaps an annual, or not quite so regular, appraisal of the “best” crime fiction-oriented blogs and Web sites was needed. While there are abundant awards given out every year to novels, short stories, and non-fiction books springing from this genre, only during occasional Bouchercons is there a prize presented for quality in online content—and then, the judging falls to readers with generally narrow scopes of experience in this field, rather than to professional critics evaluating a broader range of sites.
My judgment in this matter is obviously biased. I’ve been writing The Rap Sheet now for more than a dozen years, and I know what I like and don’t like in this arena. I also understand how difficult it is to develop and maintain an active, thoughtful crime-fiction blog, so I look at other such projects through the lens of
someone with high expectations as well as a hard-earned knowledge of what can be accomplished when blogging is an unpaid sideline, rather than a full-time occupation.The Rap Sheet’s 2017 catalogue of the best crime-fiction blogs and Web sites featured 66 electronic publications. This year’s inventory runs to 95 sites. (New entries have been marked with asterisks.) The greater number isn’t because I’ve loosened my standards; it’s simply that I have decided more of these Web projects deserve recognition, and readers of this genre deserve as much help in finding information online as they can get. A few of the blogs I included among last year’s listings have since shut down or gone dormant, including Past Offences, Tipping My Fedora, and of course, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine, which became inactive shortly before Crider passed away in February 2018. However, I have added a wide variety of sites both large (such as CrimeReads) and small, covering new as well as classic books.
What I emphasized last year still applies: These are my personal choices. I wouldn’t be surprised if other writers and reviewers differ slightly in their opinions of the “best” crime-fiction blogs and Web sites. If I have failed to note any Web resources that you think are also deserving of mention, please feel free to tell everyone about them in the Comments section at the end of this post.
• Bookgasm*
• CrimeReads*
• Crime Time*
• Dirty Books*
• Euro Crime Blog (and its parent site, Euro Crime)
• Only Detect*
• Pattinase (home of “Friday’s Forgotten Books”)
• Shotsmag Confidential (and its parent site, Shots)
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Top Dogs Among Crime Blogs
After working for many years as an editor of magazines, newspapers, and online publications, I have developed a healthy skepticism toward “bests” lists of any sort. As you might suspect, most such inventories—whether they be of doctors, residential neighborhoods, travel destinations, hamburgers, beauty salons, or books—aren’t based on meticulous scientific analysis, but instead reflect the limited experiences of their creators. On rare occasion, a periodical will go to the trouble of sending a brief survey out to, say, local attorneys, asking them who among their peers they would recommend readers hire. 
However, that’s usually as far as the research goes. Much more frequently, editors and writers simply solicit their fellow employees, friends, and other contacts for recommendations, and then present the results as authoritative.
So when I read recently that the online journal produced by MysteryPeople, the crime-fiction department of Austin, Texas’ “largest independent bookstore,” BookPeople, had been featured among Feedspot’s “Top 50 Mystery Blogs and Websites for Mystery Lovers and Authors,” I was immediately suspicious—not because the MysteryPeople blog doesn’t deserve such acclaim (it most certainly does), but because I’d never heard of Feedspot. As I subsequently learned, it’s a newsfeed aggregator that collects the latest posts—in a wide variety of subjects—from blogs and other Internet sites. The selections are extremely uneven in quality, though that’s what you would expect from an aggregator. Feedspot’s “Top 50 Mystery Blogs” choices reflect a similarly arbitrary approach. While a number of them merited recognition, I’d never heard of others mentioned (and remember, this is my field of expertise!). Furthermore, there were only 41 sites included, rather than the headline-promised 50. What was to be made of all this?
I pay scant notice to most rankings of this sort, judging them to be vanity ventures. However, I was puzzled that The Rap Sheet had been excluded from Feedspot’s roster. I took advantage, therefore, of a “Submit Your Blog” button on the left side of the “Top 50 Mystery Blogs” page. It allowed me to suggest The Rap Sheet as a site worthy of Feedspot’s attention, and also supply my name and e-mail address. What the hell, I figured, let’s see if anything happens.
Well, the very next day I received an e-note from one Anuj Agarwal, who identified himself as the “founder of Feedspot.” He wrote: “I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog The Rap Sheet has been selected by our panelist as one of the ‘Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs’ on the web. … I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world.” Huh. This was a different Feedspot register on which The Rap Sheet had finally found a place (one listing 49, rather than the avowed 50 honorees), but that seemed just fine. Especially since the “Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs” index included more sites with which I was familiar, arranged in a manner that—while confounding to the rest of us—must surely make sense to that unidentified but purportedly discriminating “panelist” Agarwal cited in his missive. The Rap Sheet had won the No. 11 spot. So what if Feedspot misreported that this blog updates only once a week, instead of the four or five times it actually does?
Then within an hour after that initial message, a second one dropped into my e-mailbox, also from Agarwal. It led with flattery (“You have an impressive blog with high quality and useful content on Mystery”), and went on to inform me: “If you subscribe to Feedspot Gold subscription, we will feature your blog in our ‘Top 50 Mystery Blogs’ post”—the one I had wondered about originally. A subscription to Feedspot Gold, it turns out, would cost $23.88 a year, although the site was willing to provide me a 12-month trial free of charge.
Now, I understand that people today are quite obsessed with making money, and entrepreneurs are still searching for foolproof ways to turn a buck online. But trying to convince the general public that your Web site can be trusted to name only the “best” of anything, while simultaneously offering blogs placement on those supposedly exclusive lists for a price, doesn’t seem even close to kosher.
The Rap Sheet’s Feedspot listing includes the number of its Facebook fans and Twitter followers, and its Alexa ranking. (Click the image to open an enlargement).
What bothers me, in addition, is that other bloggers have not been similarly hit up for Feedspot subscriptions, yet their sites were awarded choice positions among the “Top 50 Mystery Blogs and Websites” or “Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs.” Steve Lewis, the editor of Mystery*File—which appears in the former inventory—explains in a note that he’d “never heard of this list. It’s news to me. I see I’m ranked number four, which ordinarily would be quite an honor, but most of the other [sites] I’ve never heard of.”
Asked about the process involved in assembling his “bests” lists, Agarwal tells me, “We have a team of over 25 editorials [sic] working on making the best list. … We consider social metrics, Google ranking, post frequency, and of course our editors personally review the blogs before featuring them.” And how does he defend his practice of selling subscriptions in exchange for spots on his lists? “Of course, taking a subscription is not mandatory,” Agarwal avers, “but it helps us covering the cost of the project. (We are not a funded company.)”
My point here is not to steal away the satisfaction MysteryPeople, The Crime Segments, and other blogs might have derived from being mentioned among Feedspot’s crime-fiction resources; we can all use greater validation of our online efforts. I also don’t find any joy in slamming Feedspot in particular, as it’s bit player on the huge Internet stage. Nor am I naïve enough to believe similar business practices aren’t employed elsewhere, both on- and offline. However, I do think it a disservice to bloggers as well as trusting readers that a site such as Feedspot should contend that its “bests” lists represent reputation, quality, and social-media impact, while simultaneously selling slots on those registers. Feedspot suggests, on the one hand, that it’s a credible editorial product, while making clear on the other that any influence it wields can be cheaply purchased. Caveat emptor? Sorry, but Web readers aren’t fools, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.
Again, these are my personal choices. I would expect those of other writers and reviewers to differ, at least somewhat. Finally, let it be said that no site has paid a red cent to be included here.
Which other blogs and Web sites do you turn to for crime-fiction book reviews and developments in this genre? Please click the “Post a Comment” link below and tell everyone about them.
However, that’s usually as far as the research goes. Much more frequently, editors and writers simply solicit their fellow employees, friends, and other contacts for recommendations, and then present the results as authoritative.So when I read recently that the online journal produced by MysteryPeople, the crime-fiction department of Austin, Texas’ “largest independent bookstore,” BookPeople, had been featured among Feedspot’s “Top 50 Mystery Blogs and Websites for Mystery Lovers and Authors,” I was immediately suspicious—not because the MysteryPeople blog doesn’t deserve such acclaim (it most certainly does), but because I’d never heard of Feedspot. As I subsequently learned, it’s a newsfeed aggregator that collects the latest posts—in a wide variety of subjects—from blogs and other Internet sites. The selections are extremely uneven in quality, though that’s what you would expect from an aggregator. Feedspot’s “Top 50 Mystery Blogs” choices reflect a similarly arbitrary approach. While a number of them merited recognition, I’d never heard of others mentioned (and remember, this is my field of expertise!). Furthermore, there were only 41 sites included, rather than the headline-promised 50. What was to be made of all this?
I pay scant notice to most rankings of this sort, judging them to be vanity ventures. However, I was puzzled that The Rap Sheet had been excluded from Feedspot’s roster. I took advantage, therefore, of a “Submit Your Blog” button on the left side of the “Top 50 Mystery Blogs” page. It allowed me to suggest The Rap Sheet as a site worthy of Feedspot’s attention, and also supply my name and e-mail address. What the hell, I figured, let’s see if anything happens.
Well, the very next day I received an e-note from one Anuj Agarwal, who identified himself as the “founder of Feedspot.” He wrote: “I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog The Rap Sheet has been selected by our panelist as one of the ‘Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs’ on the web. … I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world.” Huh. This was a different Feedspot register on which The Rap Sheet had finally found a place (one listing 49, rather than the avowed 50 honorees), but that seemed just fine. Especially since the “Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs” index included more sites with which I was familiar, arranged in a manner that—while confounding to the rest of us—must surely make sense to that unidentified but purportedly discriminating “panelist” Agarwal cited in his missive. The Rap Sheet had won the No. 11 spot. So what if Feedspot misreported that this blog updates only once a week, instead of the four or five times it actually does?
Then within an hour after that initial message, a second one dropped into my e-mailbox, also from Agarwal. It led with flattery (“You have an impressive blog with high quality and useful content on Mystery”), and went on to inform me: “If you subscribe to Feedspot Gold subscription, we will feature your blog in our ‘Top 50 Mystery Blogs’ post”—the one I had wondered about originally. A subscription to Feedspot Gold, it turns out, would cost $23.88 a year, although the site was willing to provide me a 12-month trial free of charge.
Now, I understand that people today are quite obsessed with making money, and entrepreneurs are still searching for foolproof ways to turn a buck online. But trying to convince the general public that your Web site can be trusted to name only the “best” of anything, while simultaneously offering blogs placement on those supposedly exclusive lists for a price, doesn’t seem even close to kosher.
The Rap Sheet’s Feedspot listing includes the number of its Facebook fans and Twitter followers, and its Alexa ranking. (Click the image to open an enlargement).
What bothers me, in addition, is that other bloggers have not been similarly hit up for Feedspot subscriptions, yet their sites were awarded choice positions among the “Top 50 Mystery Blogs and Websites” or “Top 50 Crime Novel Blogs.” Steve Lewis, the editor of Mystery*File—which appears in the former inventory—explains in a note that he’d “never heard of this list. It’s news to me. I see I’m ranked number four, which ordinarily would be quite an honor, but most of the other [sites] I’ve never heard of.”
Asked about the process involved in assembling his “bests” lists, Agarwal tells me, “We have a team of over 25 editorials [sic] working on making the best list. … We consider social metrics, Google ranking, post frequency, and of course our editors personally review the blogs before featuring them.” And how does he defend his practice of selling subscriptions in exchange for spots on his lists? “Of course, taking a subscription is not mandatory,” Agarwal avers, “but it helps us covering the cost of the project. (We are not a funded company.)”
My point here is not to steal away the satisfaction MysteryPeople, The Crime Segments, and other blogs might have derived from being mentioned among Feedspot’s crime-fiction resources; we can all use greater validation of our online efforts. I also don’t find any joy in slamming Feedspot in particular, as it’s bit player on the huge Internet stage. Nor am I naïve enough to believe similar business practices aren’t employed elsewhere, both on- and offline. However, I do think it a disservice to bloggers as well as trusting readers that a site such as Feedspot should contend that its “bests” lists represent reputation, quality, and social-media impact, while simultaneously selling slots on those registers. Feedspot suggests, on the one hand, that it’s a credible editorial product, while making clear on the other that any influence it wields can be cheaply purchased. Caveat emptor? Sorry, but Web readers aren’t fools, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.
* * *
This brings up a question sent my way recently by an anonymous reader. He/she wanted recommendations of crime-fiction blogs and
Web sites, other than The Rap Sheet, that I think are worth frequenting. As is obvious from the extensive blogroll on this page’s right-hand side, I have made a study over the years of just such compendia of knowledge, covering both classic and current works. And though I’m hesitant to single out the “bests” among them, perhaps that exercise could prove valuable, if only to counter Feedspot’s more dubious such endeavor. Below, then, are 66 Web pages—listed alphabetically, and all currently active—that I visit most frequently for news, reviews, and other information related to this genre.Again, these are my personal choices. I would expect those of other writers and reviewers to differ, at least somewhat. Finally, let it be said that no site has paid a red cent to be included here.
• Euro Crime Blog (and its parent site, Euro Crime)
• Pattinase (home of “Friday’s Forgotten Books”)
• Shotsmag Confidential (and its parent site, Shots)
Which other blogs and Web sites do you turn to for crime-fiction book reviews and developments in this genre? Please click the “Post a Comment” link below and tell everyone about them.
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