Tuesday 12 March 2013

The 1000th Post!!!


Wow - this is a real landmark for me. My 1000th post. One thousand separate posts covering reviews, book hauls, wishlists, throwbacks and even the occasional author interview or post. I never really thought when I first started where it could lead. It's been an emotional ride and I will admit I've used book blogging to help me through some difficult times over the last three years.  So with that in mind I wanted to share some Pros and Cons of book blogging over the last 1000 posts. Please remember this is from my own experience and may differ from yours!

Blogging can be loads of fun!

Pros
- I've made some great bookish friends online - both in the UK and overseas. There are about a dozen blogs I try to visit daily and if I don't always leave a comment - please know I am reading you! You know who you are! J
- Reading your comments. I don't often respond I'm afraid but I do read and appreciate every single one.
- Finding so many great recommendations for books I would never have looked at twice before. New genres, new authors...
- Being able to approach authors to either rave at them or tentatively ask them for some blog content.
- Winning and holding giveaways. I've been so lucky myself - I somehow manage to win  plenty of giveaways and the more books I win, the more I feel I need to give away some myself - to balance the karma! Plus I absolutely treasure all my personalized and signed books I've managed to win as I never seem to get to any public signings in the UK! 
- Supporting new and emerging authors (I heartily recommend Laura Bickle's writing for Urban Fantasy and Sarah-Jane Lehoux if you love fantasy! Both authors deserve much more kudos than they get!)


Sometimes Blogging can be an uphill struggle...
Cons
- Self-promotion. I'm still quite shy when it comes to the whole promoting and pushing my blog. I'm not on twitter and I don't currently have a facebook page for the blog so I'm not one of the big blogs that gets a lot of notice. And, you know what? I kinda like flying under the radar...
- Pressure (from myself mostly!) to make sure I get content on the blog and to try make it interesting or different from what everyone else is doing.
- Buying SO many more books. Since I started blogging I buy about three times as many books as I did before. If I go a week without at least one new book to read I feel like I've lost out!
- Time consuming - blogging takes up a lot of my spare time and a lot of my thoughts as I spec out in my head the following week and what I want to say in reviews. I don't know if non-bloggers are aware of how much goes into keeping one!

Overall the pros outweigh the cons and I am going to continue with the blog for the foreseeable future! Hopefully there will be another 1000 posts to come from me! J

But what about you? What is your favourite thing about blogging? What do you struggle with...?



6 comments:

  1. Congrats on the 1000 posts!!!!

    I know how you feel about the whole promotion issue - but Twitter is so much fun! I've been there since 2009 (2 years before I started my blog) and even though I know many people who only use it for promoting their blogs, it's so much more. I met so many lovely people there and got to speak to so many authors too :)

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  2. I struggle with doubt, lately over the look of my blog. It's so historical and pink. And yes I am not good at promotion either.

    YAY 1000!

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  3. Oh congrats darling! It's so impressive, I alwaus love to read your blog every days.

    I was very happy to find you and your blog, you're amazing!

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  4. Congraties! I agree with both the pros and the cons. Especially the cons.

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  5. Congratulations! Looking forward to the next 1000.

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  6. Congratulations on your 1000 th post Mel, your little Morph bookends got me all nostalgic there! And yep, I also buy the paperback if I've really loved the ebook, for some reason my brain believes it will stay forever on my shelf but not on my kindle. Crazy I know.

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