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Welcome to Reading Around the Globe, a series here on Reader Voracious Blog geared at fostering a culture of understanding in the bookish community about access to books in various countries around the world. Each post in the series highlights a full interview with one international reader. You can read more about this series here on the series master post.
An Interview with Petrik
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- What is your name? Petrik
- Blog URL? Novel Notions
- Twitter handle?
@PetrikReads - Where do you live? Jakarta, Indonesia
- Do you find that there is a culture of reading where you live? If not, tell us a bit how you came to be one! I would say yes for manga but absolutely not for novels. Although in Jakarta and my surroundings, some people do read novels (mostly books that have been popularized by their TV/Movies adaptation), country-wise Indonesia literacy rate is awful. Indonesia ranked second last in terms of reading interest, that’s ranking 60th out of 61 countries. Bibliophile of novels are rare here, and if we’re speaking readers of the genre (adult SFF and historical fiction) I’m interested in, me and a few other readers I know are pretty much an alien. As for how I became a reader, I have been always been a reader of manga but reading novels? Honestly, I can be considered new. Sure I’ve read a few novels like Harry Potter or some other mandatory reads growing up, but my interest in reading novels sparked in September 2016 after reading Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. The full story of how I became a reader of novels is here.
- What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? Adult-oriented SFF and historical fiction are definitely my favorite genres to read.
- Have you always been a reader? I’ve always been a reader since I was a kid. But like I said in question number 5, I’m a reader of manga (still am btw) and my love for novels have only just begun in September 2016. That said, since then I’ve read almost 300 novels and as it turns out, reading novels is a passion that I never knew existed in me; I plan to continue this forever.
- Do you also read books published in your native language/published locally to you? If so, tell us a bit about what kinds of books are published in your country! Unfortunately, no. Although Indonesia is my first language, I have no interest in reading books published in the language. I’ve read some parts of my favorite English novels translated into Indonesia and I honestly laughed at almost every page because it sounds so weird.
- Are there libraries where you live? If so, what kinds of books can you find there? Are you able to get the books that you want? Library? What library? :p Okay seriously though, there’s only one public library in my city and extremely unreliable is an understatement. I’m speaking based on books I usually read and I can tell you that it’s practically impossible for adult SFF books to appear there.
- How prevalent are English published books where you live in bookstores? (For example, books printed by HarperCollins.) There are four main bookstores in Jakarta or Indonesia: Kinokuniya, Periplus, Books & Beyond, Gramedia. Luckily, English published books are available and prevalent within these stores. That said, Periplus bookstore aside, the English books provided in the other stores can be very costly; more or less twice the price offered on Amazon or Book Depository. Not to mention that for adult SFF books, most of the time you have to order it and wait for it to arrive, which usually takes 3-4 weeks. You can’t just go into a bookstore expecting that the newest book of your favorite series will immediately be there, it won’t. Unless of course, we’re talking about giant best-selling authors like J.K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, and Tolkien, their newest book will definitely be there but I guess they are on a different level of selling power. To give a bit of measurement, books that are written by Patrick Rothfuss and Scott Lynch seldom appear in bookstores here, and I honestly never see Joe Abercrombie or Steven Erikson’s books here and they’re very popular in US/UK.
- Do you use NetGalley or Edelweiss to request electronic galleys for review? If so, what kind of success rate would you estimate for you personally? I use NetGalley to request e-ARC, my success rate has been really good honestly speaking. So far I’ve requested 25 books on Netgalley and I’ve been rejected only thrice, all rejection by the same publisher so I’ll just assume that this publisher doesn’t give out ARC to non-US/UK reader.
- Do you experience hurdles or barriers to access for the kinds of books that you read? Please explain if so. This goes back to my answer in question number 10, the kind of books I read are hard to find. This year, I purchase books almost exclusively from Book Depository for their cheap prices, this of course results in a long period of waiting time because of horrible mailing system and how far my location are from the sender. For example, I pre-ordered Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames from last year, the publication date is on August, 2018; my PRE-ORDER arrived on October. What even is the point of pre-order then? But then if I don’t pre-order from Book Depository, I won’t be able to get this book because it’s not available everywhere else in my local stores, not even until now. Oh I should mention, all the hurdles or barriers I have talked about until now is strictly for physical books, ebooks are different. As long that they have the ebooks on Amazon (must change location on setting first), Google Play store, or ibooks, we have access to them.
- If you could make one change to the publishing landscape, what would you do? Please give more chances of reviewing ARC to international bloggers. I’ve seen and heard from plenty of highly influential international bloggers who had their ARC request rejected or totally ignored only because they don’t live in US/UK. I totally understand that sending out physical ARCs outside of US/UK can be expensive and inefficient, but there should be no problem in sending out eARCs. I don’t mean to attack any small blogger here, I’m talking about the purpose of ARC in general. The purpose of ARCs is to make sure the book receives buzz, hype, and honest reviews so that the targeted reader will know about the specific book and hopefully, pre-order it. With this, the more influential (usually with high follower count) the reviewer is, the better. I’ve seen publishers send out physical ARC to blogger with lower than 50 followers just because they live in US/UK, that’s good for them really and I’m happy for them. But then, the same publishers decline or ignore sending out E-ARC (which is free and instant btw) to international bloggers who have thousands of followers just because they don’t live in US/UK. Where is the fairness and effectiveness in that kind of marketing? There’s also an argument that stated they’re afraid of international readers reselling the physical ARC they received. I have no idea where this argument came from, maybe it’s just a false rumor but this argument doesn’t even make sense. Not only most international readers treat the physical ARC they receive like golden dragon’s egg, if you go to eBay and search ‘Advanced Reading Copy’, I wish you good luck trying to find an ARC reseller that’s not from the United States. So yeah, if there’s one change to the publishing landscape that I would apply, it is to give international blogger more chances of reviewing an ARC. It’s okay if it’s just an eARC, I’m sure a lot of international bloggers (me included) will be super happy just to be given the honor, trust, and opportunity to review an ARC.
- Help other international bloggers out… What resources do you use to obtain the books that you want to read? Book Depository (Cheap prices and free shipping almost worldwide) and Better Worlds Books (for used books, free shipping as well).
- Do you have any other experiences as a reader around the world that you would like to share? Other than the one I mentioned above regarding ARC, please stop saying the library is the solution to everything. Newsflash, US/UK aren’t the only country that exists in this world and a lot of countries doesn’t have libraries with high accessibility for books like you guys have. A friend of mine once asked an honest innocent question “do you guys know where we can buy books cheaper? I’m really low on cash right now.” Only to be replied with “Have you ever heard of the library?” Please, stop being ignorant and be more considerate. There are millions of readers outside of US/UK and they simply don’t have the same privilege as US/UK reader. Think about it logically, do you honestly think that a voracious reader won’t know or use libraries to borrow and read books? It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s because they don’t have access to a library that can give them the books they’re looking for. Thank you, Kaleena for having me and doing this!
Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter.
Read More Reading Around the Globe Interviews
Argentina
Consu @ papereyedgirl
Australia
Ellyn @ allonsythornraxxbooks
Greyson @ Use Your Words
Bangladesh
Maria @ mariahossainblog
Belgium
Inge @ Of Wonderland
Wesley @ Outsiders and Misfits
Canada
Catherine @ This One is for the Books (Toronto)
Kristina @ Books and Dachsunds (New-Brunswick)
Shania @ Book Princess Reviews (Quebec)
Chile
Maria @ bookish4life
Denmark
Catherine @ Bees and Books
Silje @ inkedbybooks
England
Clo @ Cuppa Clo
Olly @ Criminolly
France
Emma @ Mengueis De Livres
Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books
Germany
Silvia @ Silvia Reads Books
Hungary
Veronika @ Reading is Dreaming with Open Eyes
Indonesia
Carolina @ fictionologyst
Petrik @ Novel Notions
India
Himani @ Books&Sstuff
Nandini @ Unputdownable Books
Prags @ The Inked In Book Blog
Sumedha @ The Wordy Habitat
Suraj @ Books N Myself
Italy
Angela @ Books of a Shy Girl
Camilla @ Reader Attic
Kuwait
Devyn Jase @ devynjase.com
Mexico
Jossie @ thebookdragoncorner
Mozambique
A Restless Traveler
The Netherlands
Annemieke @ A Dance With Books
Esther @ Bite into Books
Luci @ Lunar Luci Books
Marco @ Barely a Blogger
Michelle @ Michelle Likes Things
Nigeria
Chinelo @ Booked_Unicorn
Norway
Julie @ StrixAlucoBooks
Palestine
Hamad @ thebookprescription
Pakistan
Nargis @ Literary Nerd’s Musings
Philippines
Aimee @ Aimee Always
Alexia @ Bookworm Daydreamer
Gel @ Whimsy Wanders
Justine @ bookishwisps
Kate @ Your Tita Kate
Rain @ Bookdragoninsm
Shealea @ Shut Up, Shealea
Portugal
Marta @ The Book Mermaid
Rita @ Bookish Rita
Romania
Dianthaa @ Dianthaa Dabbles
Puerto Rico
Yani @ Read & Create
Rwanda
Annie @ Sunflower Bookshelf
Singapore
Taasia @ libraepaintspages
Slovenia
Para @ Other Worlds Reviews
South Africa
DB @ DB’s Guide to the Galaxy
Switzerland
Elisa @ bookishexpat
United Arab Emirates
Nicka @ Wander with Nicka
Zimbabwe
Sakhile @ Sakhile Whispers
Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter or send me a message on Discord.
💖 If you like the work that I do here at Reader Voracious, consider fueling my pumpkin spice latte and black tie addiction by buying me a ko-fi! ☕
Thank you so much for having me, Kaleena! 🙂
Absolutely, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences! I really love how reading novels is a relatively new thing for you and am so glad you found out that you enjoy it (even though my TBR weeps)!
I completely agree with you about the ARCs needing to be sent to more bloggers internationally, especially if they are own-voices reviewers! Even if readership in the country is low, the great thing about book blogging is that we have an international audience. Reach is more important than location in my opinion, but I know that things are a little more complicated than that (costs, publishing rights). But there has to be a better solution here than the status quo.
Can you share a bit more as to why you need to change your location for eBooks? Is that because of publishing rights in Indonesia, or an Amazon thing?
Love this idea 🙂 It’s great to discover so many new bloggers around the world!
xoxo
http://gingersnaphattie.blogspot.com
Thank you so much for stopping by!
Very good interview! I love this concept, Kaleena.
Thank you so much, Paul! It means a lot to me!
I love this series of yours, Kaleena! It’s so great to read about different readers around the world <3
Thank you so much, Sophie!
Great interview, loved getting to know more about Petrik!
Thank you, Lisa! 🙂
You’re welcome! 😀
Thank you, Lisa!
Giving ARCs to international bloggers with a high amount of followers sounds like a very reasonable ask. I do wonder the thinking about not giving them out. You do say that Indonesia has a low literacy rate so maybe they assume all your followers are from the same place and won’t get the same impact? But, really that doesn’t make sense. I’m kind of interested in researching about this now. As for the library question, maybe they didn’t know your friend was from a place with hardly any libraries. This series has been really opening my eyes. It’s not something I really thought about although I know that there are plenty of charities that ask for book donations. I really enjoyed hearing Petrik’s perspective. I can’t wait to read more interviews Kaleena.
https://shesgotbooksonhermind.blogspot.com/
As far as I know, it’s not low literacy rate that they consider. I highly doubt publishers research literacy rate of every country when bloggers ask for an ARC. From talking to international bloggers, what they see are usually “Not in US/UK” location.
Honestly, I currently have 8,000 followers on bookish social media and the people that read and buy books based on my reviews most of the time comes from US/UK, which again brings me to the point that giving E-ARCs to international bloggers shouldn’t be a problem because in the end, the people that we influence are the same, with bonus of reaching other non US/UK reader.
Don’t get me wrong, publishers are most of the time very nice to me and some are actually willing to even give physical ARCs or review copies all the way to my place. So far, I only know two publishers who pretty much ignored my requests totally.
My point is that it’s exponentially harder for international readers to get ARC compared to US/UK readers. Maybe, it could be just that international bloggers have to do more and have so much more followers than usual in order to be noticed by publishers, where US/UK bloggers can pretty much just have a blog and will be noticed. I’m not just spewing this out of nowhere of course. I know a US blogger with 30 followers who pretty much get send at least 5 to 10 physical ARCs a month.
As for libraries, they didn’t know are exactly the problem. The thing is, most US/UK readers don’t actually know that readers outside US/UK have a poorer library than them. That’s why libraries are always used as a solution for everything related to cost, and it’s not.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Adriana! I know that at least for me and my experiences, we take for granted the resources and access that we get and just assume that it is the same for everyone globally. I know I was surprised to learn libraries weren’t a thing globally, and can only imagine how frustrating it would be to be told to use them if you don’t have the same access.