Thursday, July 23, 2015

Evolving the blog ... changes to posts and book reviews

It’s been a while now since I’ve started the blog and things have changed. I’ve learned a lot about book blogging and posting reviews, and I’ve discovered things don’t always go according to plan.

book

Let me start with reviews.

When I started blogging, I thought I would read three to four books a week and post two to three reviews a week. It was very ambitious of me and little did I know things like life gets in the way of reading and writing reviews.

When I attended a blogger conference earlier in the year, most of the bloggers were saying that they only reviewed four to six books a month and I now see why. Life!

In the last couple of months, while I put myself down to review three to four books a week, things have not gone as planned. I was suddenly called back to help out at my old job full time for a month and a half. That cut back the reading time by a great deal. After I finished with the work, I was playing catch up and that made everything worse. I fell more and more behind.

Lately, I have not been reading on the weekends at all as I have been spending time with my husband. During the week, I am in the city and while Steve is at work, I catch up on bloggity stuff and errands. At the moment, my parents are also around so I’m spending a lot of time with them. They are about to go away for another extended trip and I’m spending more time with them as a result. Most stuff cutting into reading time.

run

Each day, I have my list of errands to run, the day job to do, spend time with my parents, drive Steve to work and back. All of that cuts into my reading time. The reality is, I’m finding I only have time to read one book per week, perhaps two.

My sincere apologies go out to people I’ve said I would review their books in the coming months because I am very far behind. I’m still playing catch up from when I worked full time and trying to fit in reading during the week. Your books will get reviewed but it might take me a month or two to get to them.

I have not signed up for any new books to review for a while now and I’ve made a determined effort to stay off NetGalley so I’m not tempted by all the lovely new books posted there. That site is like crack to a book junkie like me. All those gorgeous books!!!

books

The reality check from between the time I started blogging book reviews till now has been interesting. I feel guilty because I feel like I am letting authors I’ve said I would review books for down but at the same time, as Steve reminds me, I’m doing this for free and life does go on. I was also sick with the flu for about three weeks recently and during that time, much as I wanted to read, I was really too weak to do much of anything. The flu kicked my butt. I probably got a fairly mild version of it but it still knocked me out.

The long and the short of it is I’m only going to commit to one or two books a week, likely between four to seven books a month.

If you want me to review your books, feel free to email me about it. I won’t turn you down if what you’ve written aligns with what I like to read but bear in mind it might take me a while to get to your book. If you don’t mind the wait, I’m happy to read your book.

One final thought on reviews, some authors are saying their reviews are being removed by Amazon because Amazon perceives them to know the authors. I know a lot of authors whom I interact frequently or infrequently with on Facebook. I do not know if Amazon will start deleting my reviews or not. I will always post my reviews on my blog. If possible, I will also post to Goodreads and Amazon. If Amazon starts deleting my reviews, I’m not going to kick up a fuss because I love knowing and interacting with the authors whose books I love to read. I’ll just not post my reviews to Amazon. Since Amazon owns Goodreads, I do not know if and when that will spill over to Goodreads. If that is the case, that’s what the blog is for and anyone is free to share links of reviews I post on the blog with anyone. I always tweet links to my reviews.

If you do want me to review a book or two for you, I’d love to as long as they are what I read. Bear in mind my timing on those though.

shards  krentz

I also want to give myself some time to read for fun. My favorite authors continue to release new books and I want to read them too. Two of them come to mind right now: Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh and Wildest Hearts by Jayne Ann Krentz. Both books are waiting patiently for me to read them and I’m waiting perhaps a little bit more impatiently to get to them. I hope I don’t forget!

cal

The other thing that has changed on the blog is the posts and topics. When I first started, I had decided on a schedule that looked a bit like this:
  • Monday – Book review
  • Tuesday – Teaser book I’m excited about, either a new release, soon to be released or something that catches my fancy
  • Wednesday – New releases or if I can fit it in, a book review
  • Thursday – a topical post on something which interests me or is going on with the book / publishing industry that is timely
  • Friday – a post promoting a free or on sale book
  • Saturday – anything I feel like or nothing at all
  • Sunday – a video post linked to my YouTube channel

Ambitious, huh? A post a day, sometimes more than one a day. I really try to post no more than two a day so the blog doesn’t get clogged up. This holds particularly true if I am doing a promo post and I don’t want the post to fall behind and not be the first or second post to be shown at the top of the blog when someone visits.

I’m still mostly keeping to a post a day, sometimes two but the posts have changed.

Monday is still a review post assuming I get a book review done in time. This week I missed the mark and there was no book review. A first since I started reviewing. I feel a bit sad about it but I also need to be philosophical about it and not beat myself up.

Tuesday has become the promo day. It’s still a Tuesday Teaser but the teaser is in the form of a new release or cover reveal from a tour I might be hosting. It has worked out much better.

Wednesday has become sort of a no man’s land in terms of posts. That day seems to play host to whatever takes my fancy and I can fit in for the day. Usually it’s a new release promo of some sort.

Thursday is still very much a topic post but I don’t have as many of those. If I have a topic to post, I will. If not, it is a promo post of some sort. (This post is a Thursday post, if you haven't noticed. :-) )

Friday is still a freebie or sale post though there seems to be more 99c box sets and on sale books than sale books of late. The on sale of 99c books are more reliable too and they are easier to write in advance since the free books can change without notice and I really would hate to post something saying it’s free and it’s not.

Saturday is a book review or a promo post. It seems to inhabit the same no man’s land as Wednesday.

Sunday went from videos to makeup posts to just about anything to the same no man’s land as Wednesday and Saturday.

list

Steve tells me that my posting schedule is crazy and a post or two a day is nuts. He’s probably right. The blog is taking a lot of effort, not that I’m complaining. I’m enjoying it very much. I only wish I could read faster and read more, and as we’ve discussed before, that’s not a possibility right now.

What’s the point of this post you ask? Nothing really. I wanted to hop on and give you and update on my blogging life. The blog is likely to change even more over time, or perhaps not, I don't know. We'll have to see where life takes me.


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