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It’s the last day of Armchair BEA! It’s been great to “meet” so many new-to-me bloggers this week. Thanks to all who have stopped by!
Today’s topic: “If you have any burning questions for your fellow participants about book blogging now is the time to ask and if you don’t we’d love for you to share your own personal tips about book blogging!”
My burning question:
This is aimed at the people with similar situations to mine–40 hour work week, family commitments, gym time, reading time, blogging time, and the list goes on. How do you do it? It seems like it gets harder rather than easier for me. And I don’t even have children!
My tips?
I won’t claim to be any kind of expert, but I can probably throw out a couple.
1. Keep it fun. Don’t worry about how many followers you have or how many review books you get. You probably started doing this because it sounded like fun. Do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
2. Don’t lose sight of what’s really important in life. Make time for your real-world commitments. Most of us are blessed to have some sort of support system outside the internet. Keep up with them. The internet is always here. Your friends might not be if you lose touch with them.
Stop by and see what advice other experts have to offer and give advice of your own at the Armchair BEA website!
I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site.
9 Comments
Having fun is very important!!
I definitely agree with you. Blogging takes up enough time just doing it for fun, so if you start worrying about posting everyday or about how many followers you have, it doesn't make it as enjoyable. Have a great weekend!
Nice, simple, succinct advice. Keep fun, FUN and the rest will follow.
I’m not working right now so I have plenty of time to work on my blog. However, I will say that being organized and scheduling posts is a great help. And try to limit your time outside of your blog, for example on social media or reading other blogs. Of course you need to read and comment in order to network and participate, but maybe just choose to read 10 posts and leave 10 comments each day and over time it will add up. If you’re feeling stressed though, it won’t be the end of the world if you take a break. Just let your readers know and then, when you come back, you’ll have tons of archived posts to help prevent you from getting burnt out. Hope that helps!
Good advice. I need to remember to keep those real life friends close.
balancing blog time and life time can be very hard! Great tips!
Chelle
I am in a similar situation. I don't have any children but I work full time as a teacher and I'm also studying astrophysics through distance learning. I just try not to put any pressure on myself – I will accept review copies, but only usually if I can read them on my own schedule.
Me too! I work FT, have two kids, and reading is supposed to be fun fun fun.. But when the review schedule starts to drain the fun out of it, it's time to step away from the review copies. But it's hard, for me personally.
In my case, definitely step one is to limit the amount of review books coming in. And to step away from NetGalley!
Here is my Post for today!
I have a similar situation – well, except I have a 2 hour downtime most days while the kids swim to read. But, I usually set aside my Sunday evenings to blog for the week. Having a sort of schedule i.e. reviews on Monday, top 10 on Tuesday etc., helps me tremendously.
Tanya
Girlxoxo.com