Book Blogging | What I Do and Don’t Do

I’ve been book blogging since 2013. I would say that first year was all about trial and error. To be honest, it’s still like that. My priorities have changed, my mindset has changed, there are just different things I’m trying to achieve goal-wise.

Having a blog itself has definitely changed a lot of the years, many are using their Instagram as a sort of micro-blogging and it works for them. So now, my book blog is tied into my Instagram page as well that I’ve created for my page. Lately, a lot of posts on my blog are solely book reviews and recommendations. I have all these plans to do more non-review posts, but I just haven’t gotten around to them yet, so here’s to throwing this one into the non-review post.

Today, I just wanted to share some things that I’ve experienced over the years that I probably won’t try again when it comes to my personal social media pages, working with book/author PR companies.

i don’t do

• tag other bloggers in my personal posts – This one is probably more of a pet peeve for me. But I’m not really a fan, when someone tags me in their post to just check it out. Most cases, it’s not a shout out of sorts or has nothing directly to do with me. Obviously, if I have interacted with this person before a bunch times before, I don’t mind. But there’s been so many cases where it’s people that I have never interacted with before.
• follow loops of any kind – I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have a lot of engagement to generally bring great bookish conversation between myself and the reader. I remember when I first started out that I paired engagement to the amount of people that like/follow your page. I was asked to do a follow loop giveaway of sorts on facebook, I said why not, sounds like a good idea. While my numbers went up greatly, it wasn’t the same for the engagement. It was still very low and usually when the giveaway is done, you’re back to square one. Now I don’t participate in them.
  • the one thing that I have learned over the years is that the best way to gain engagement is to engage with other people.
• DO NOT SIGN UP FOR ALL THE ARCS – That was one of my BIGGEST regrets when I first started out and what a learning experience that turned out to be. I took on way more than I could handle, which resulted in a huge backlist of unread ARCs. I still have many unread ones til this day. When it came to PR companies/Netgalley/Edelweiss, I bit off more than I can chew and definitely trying to recover from that (Netgalley specifically).
• tag an author in a negative review – I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s still happening and it needs to stop. Yes, we’re all entitled to our opinion, but to full on bash an author and to tag them. That’s low and not ok. If you think you’re doing them some good, you’re not and it’s super hurtful for them to have to see that. PLUS, there are ways to write a negative review without being a jerk about it.

i do

• support other book bloggers/authors/anyone in the book community – if you follow me on Instagram, I’m constantly taking advantage of sharing things in my IG stories. It’s a quick way to get a little shout out to anyone in the book community. It’s greatly appreciated from everyone. Comment on posts, just get that conversation going.
• unfavorable read? It’s OK to say that you won’t be reviewing – PRs are more vocal about this now, but if you signed up for a book and didn’t like it, they will not be offended if you decide to not review it. Every book will not work for you and it’s OK. But of course, give them a heads up.
  • DNF books, I do this more, now. I used to really push myself through books especially if I didn’t enjoy them. But now, if it’s not working for me, I’m shelving it for now.
• Always ask a question for your readers in your posts – This is something that works for any kind of blogging. To me, it’s such a great way to get a conversation going with your readers.

Hopefully some of this was insightful, if not, that’s OK too. 😉 Blogging for me was something I decided to do right after college and found myself with so much time on my hands. That’s when my love of reading romance really picked up and I was just eager to find a community that had the same interest. I am nowhere close to my personal blogging goals, but I’m still going to work on getting there.

what are some of things that work/don’t work for you when it comes to book blogging?