Yesterday, I wrote that I thought the so-called "London Book Festival" awards were a scam. Well I'm obviously not the only person in the world who uses Google Alerts, because I woke up this morning to a reply (a public blog comment - not a private email, in case anyone was wondering) from the organisers, which in the interests of fairness I will reproduce here in full.

One reason the world is going to hell is because bloggers don't pick up the phone and ask questions. It's much easier for lazy people to hurl accusations.

Your main complaint seem to be that we're running book festivals around the world. Yes, we do, in New York City (Central Park), Hollywood and London. We've made a lot of writers, publishers and others happy at our parties, panels, events, festivals. We've had many top people speak at the events.

Does four Google ads really constitute a site "covered" in them? And yes, we support books from major publishers and smaller ones. Shoot me for supporting the little guy. We haven't set the date for the London live event yet, which is why we're not talking about it.

Maybe you should follow your own advice - check things out a bit more carefully in the future before tossing around accusations.

Best,
Bruce Haring
JM Northern Media

http://jonnynexus.livejournal.com/357962.html?thread=2123850#t2123850

Well that did make me think, and then I did what he said. I checked it out. And given that what I write here is being indexed by Google, I'm going to try and fully set out my position.

( In Which I Think... )

( In Which I Analyse The Reply... )

( In Which I Google... )

( Conclusion... )

Tags: jm northern media, london book festival