The "International" Blogger

Hello, my name is Rabiah and I am an international blogger.

*in unison* Hi Rabiah.

When I personally refer to being an "international" blogger, I mean I'm a blogger who does not currently reside in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia (Obviously, if you're in these locations it would be something a little different :D). Being one certainly does have it's perks, but a lot of the time, there's a ton of disadvantages as well. Observe:

THE PERKS OF BEING AN "INTERNATIONAL" BLOGGER

US releases? Check. Canadian Releases? Check. UK releases? Check. Australian releases? Check.

This is one bit of living in Singapore I find absolutely amazing. The fact that I get to know great releases in the US, which is a majority of what I read, but also books that release in the UK, Canada and Australia. I'm not tied down to one market or publisher, and find about so many amazing reads.

You are unique.

I hopefully can speak for myself when I say that there's not too many book bloggers in Singapore. We definitely have more than a handful, but whenever I mention it to someone (or my mom mentions it to someone rather), they're always curious to know more.

International editions of books.

Don't like the US cover? No problem. We get the UK ones as well!

Book Signings = no long lines.

Yup! You heard me. I've been to two signings in Singapore so far, and I can tell you that there have been very short lines. The turn out isn't very big either, so there's generally a lot more you can ask the author and get to speak to them for a longer time, and such.

THE DOWNSIDES TO BEING AN "INTERNATIONAL" BLOGGER

Authors rarely come here.

I'm always super jealous of my book blogging peeps in the US... you always get to go to these amazing book signings! Even the bookish people in The Philippines have had better luck than we've had. I've only heard of (so far) three people coming here – four technically because Sarah Alderson lives really close by. But that's not too big a turn out and it makes me sad because I know some really big authors have a huge fan following in Singapore, and we don't get to meet them :(

ARCs and Galleys.

Thank the gods for Edelweiss and NetGalley, but there's no way to describe the awesomeness of going to the mailbox and finding something from a publisher there. Due to rights, many publishing companies can't send books overseas to bloggers who live in this area, but many publishers, I'm glad to say, are really opening up, so I'm excited to see where this will go!

Book Conventions

I think other than the Asian writing festival, there's no major book convention in this side of the world. ALA, BEA, TLA... these are like DREAMS for book bloggers on this side. I'm super glad to say I was able to experience ALA this summer, and had a blast. But of course, other than that, we don't have anything here.

These, I would have to say are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of being a blogger overseas from where many large publishers and famous authors are stationed.
Anyway, this school year will be the last time I'll be an "international" blogger. Sad to see it go, but looking forward to book conventions, book signings and so on!

Let me know your thoughts: Fellow international bloggers, do you agree?

5 comments:

  1. Italian/International blogger/booktuber and I totally agree!! I can read more and different books but I've never seen an author live and certainly publishers won't send me books for reviews..

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  2. Lol at your beginning xD
    But yeah I love that we get both US and UK versions. Though I almost always prefer US!
    Thank goodness we can actually experience signings and stuff when we're in uni! (well assuming I don't stay here, which I probs won't anyway)
    But still so glad some pubs send internationally. I'm gonna freak out so much when Harper books arrive xD

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  3. We're mostly US based, although Sarah just moved across the pond (i.e., to England) so we're partially international now, but we enjoyed hearing your perspective! It is a shame you don't get more authors out that way, but at least now there are Google Hangouts and live YouTube events and such. Not the same, but better than nothing?

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  4. Haha. I TOTALLY agree with you. Malaysia fella right here ^^ I'm ESPECIALLY jealous for the fact that there's this BIG book events they do every year & lots of signing events. The other one I'm jealous of is the fact that fellow bloggers get to meet each other.

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  5. US blogger here who now feels a little bad about not taking advantage of the opportunities for meeting authors-it's just not my favorite thing. Sidenote: I studied abroad at NUS and loved being in Singapore, great place! I'm glad you have a lot of positives to balance out the negatives :)

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