Thursday Thirteen: Things I’ve Learned From Book Blogging

Thursday Thirteen is a weekly meme with a simple theme: each Thursday you blog a list of 13 things. What kind of things? Any kind! Just come up with a list theme and run with it.

 Brianna’s List:

1. Twitter is THE happening place. Twitter is where I get most of my book-related news. I find out about: upcoming releases, new-to-me books, new-to-me authors, author appearances, when ARCs are available, giveaways, book events, blogging events, and so much more. If it's happening, better believe it'll be on Twitter.
2. I've really honed in on what I like, and don’t like, to read.
3. It's okay to be selective with which books I read for review. When I started out, I accepted a lot of books for review, books I thought ‘I could like this, maybe’. Now I try to only accept books that speak to me or grab my attention right off the bat.
4. It's okay to not finish reading book. I used to feel guilty about this but now, if the book is not holding my attention, I stop reading and move on to another book. There's a book for everyone but not everyone will like the same book.
5. Sometimes things get overwhelming and you need to call in some reinforcement. J9 is my reinforcement.
6. I shouldn’t compare yourself (or my blog) to other people. What works for another blogger might not work for me.
7. Make the best with what you have to work with. I would love to be on WordPress but financially speaking, that is not an option for me right now. Some bloggers are able to supplement the costs associated with being self-hosted on WP by offering ad space. For me, at this point in time, my blog is just a hobby and not a business venture. This could very well change at some point in the future but for right now, I'm fine with the way things are. I realize that I've hit the glass ceiling where I'm at, but I try to make the best of it.
8. Comments make my day. It never gets old; every time I get a comment on one of my posts, I get completely giddy.
9. Blogging takes up a lot of time. People say this but it doesn't hold any weight until you experience it for yourself. I spend countless hours tweaking and fiddling with my blog. Some of which benefits me more than our readers as it’s more of a 'behind the scenes' type thing. Then there's formatting and scheduling posts, arranging promotional posts, creating Rafflecopter widgets for giveaways, cross posting reviews, updating review indexes - the list just goes on and on. And let's not forget the most important time consuming task, the reason I started this blog in the first place, READING.
10. Windows Live Writer is my best friend. Let me just say that if you're on Blogger and a PC machine (as opposed to a Mac), you should be using WLW to format and schedule your blog posts. No ifs, ands, or butts about it. I constantly hear about Blogger's wonky formatting and Blogger eating posts. I don't have those issues with WLW. I can go on and on about the benefits of WLW but that's another post for another day.
11. You have to be careful with images you grab online. When I first started blogging, I found images to use via a search engine and without checking to see if I had permission to do so. Wrong! I just didn't know but in this case, ignorance isn't bliss. Once I found out about this, I went thru every single one of my posts and removed images I didn't have permission to use. And the same goes with fonts.
12. When I first started book blogging I never thought I'd say this but I greatly prefer reading an ebook over a print copy. It's just more convenient for me to read a digital copy. I can highlight, take notes, and most importantly I can easily search within the book.
13. I like book blogging more than I thought I would. As a true Gemini, I often start projects and stop before they're finished because I lose interest pretty quickly. The thing about books is that once you get bored with one book/author/trope/genre, there's always another (different) one to read. Yes, there have been times where I have seriously considered closing up shop but I never find myself actually being able to go through with it. Sometimes i just need a break but book blogging is something I still enjoy doing.

 

What are some things you’ve learned from book blogging?