Blog Advice Archives - Introverted Reader

Ask the Experts: Armchair BEA

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: How do you make time for everything? 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

June 8, 2012

Blog Advice

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Blogging Tips

The world of blogging is continually changing. Share 3 things you are essential tried and true practices for every blogger and 1-3 new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future. I know I'm probably middle-aged in the span of the average blogger, but I still feel like I'm learning too much all the time to have very much to share. I'll give this a go though. My biggest tip is: Stay true to yourself. Write about what interests you and read what interests you. This is your space to do whatever makes you happy. It's a labor of love with a big time commitment. If you try to make others happy, you just won't enjoy doing this. And be choosy about your books. When those first pitches start rolling in, it's easy to get excited about a "free book!" and just say yes rather than objectively sitting back and evaluating whether it's something you really want to read. You'll enjoy yourself more if you're doing what you want to do. If you don't like a book, don't feel pressured into saying you do. Some bloggers choose not to review books they don't enjoy, and that's fine. I go ahead and give my thoughts, but I try my best to really think about what turned me off and suggest a group of people that the book might appeal to instead. This is hard to do if it's a book that you've received for review, because most of us do want to be nice, but in the long run your readers and even authors and publishers will respect you more for your honest opinion, whether positive or negative. If you like the feeling of community we have here in book-bloggerland, you should think about joining the…

10 Comments

September 16, 2011

Blog Advice

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Community Part II

Today's Book Blogger Appreciation Week prompt is "The world of book blogging has grown enormously and sometimes it can be hard to find a place. Share your tips for finding and keeping community in book blogging despite the hectic demands made on your time and the overwhelming number of blogs out there. If you’re struggling with finding a community, share your concerns and explain what you’re looking for–this is the week to connect!" I have found that the book blogging community is fairly easy to connect to--if you have the time. Comment on blogs and people will come visit your blog. Take part in events, challenges, and memes. Join the conversations on Twitter and Facebook. There are a countless number of bloggers, readers, authors, publishers, publicists, and booksellers out there who are more than happy to interact with other bibliophiles. I have been struggling with my time over the past year, ever since I started my current job. At my old job, I had time to read during my downtime (my boss knew about it and frequently asked me for recommendations). I worked long hours, but I got a lot of reading done, so on my four days off, I could have my "real life" time and my "book life" time and they didn't really conflict. Things changed when I went to the 8-5 M-F. I have struggled to find my balance. Even a year later, I am torn between reading, reviewing, the online interaction, and the truly important stuff--the real life stuff. I don't have as much time to interact with the book blogging community, and I do honestly miss it. But I'm also okay with that. My personal relationships take priority, as they should for all of us. Still, when I pop in on Twitter, someone is generally…

7 Comments

September 14, 2011

Blog Advice

Why You Should Think About Joining Twitter: Armchair BEA

There is a Book Blogger Convention going on today at Book Expo America and I am at least as jealous of the attendees of this event as I am of those grabbing ARCs and meeting authors. Look at these topics they'll be learning about: Marketing - How to increase your blog stats, Branding, Getting your name out there Writing and Building Content - Tips and tricks on writing good book reviews, Tone-humor sarcasm, I'm out of ideas what do I do now?/How do I keep it fresh?, Planning a good feature/series, What content is most popular? How do I innovate/differentiate?, How do I balance reviews with other content? Impact of the Relationship Between Author and Blogger - Creating/Fostering a relationship, Pitfalls of relationships between blogger/author Blogging With Social Responsibility I need help with all of these! Just because we can't be there in person doesn't mean that we can't learn from each other. So head on over to Armchair BEA and join in our virtual Book Blogger Convention Roundtable. I've struggled with this post. I felt like I didn't have anything to say about any of these topics and everything to learn. Then I participated in the #armchairBEA Twitter party last night and it hit me: I could blog about why you as a blogger should consider signing up for Twitter. I'm a recent Twitter convert myself. I only signed up a couple of months ago. Before I signed up, I just thought it was a place where people said stuff like, "I'm going to brush my teeth," or maybe the slightly more exciting, "Having a glass of wine." I was so wrong! Do those tweets come through? Sure. We all tweet them occasionally. But really it's a place to interact in real time with your fellow bloggers and readers,…

19 Comments

May 28, 2010